Osteichthyes was named by Huxley (1880) [traditionally a class, but raised to an unranked clade including other vertebrate classes in modern classifications traditionally a class, but raised to an unranked clade including other vertebrate classes in modern classifications traditionally a class, but raised to an unranked clade including other vertebrate classes in modern classifications traditionally a class, but raised to an unranked clade including other vertebrate classes in modern classifications traditionally a class, but raised to an unranked clade including other vertebrate classes in modern classifications traditionally a class, but raised to an unranked clade including other vertebrate classes in modern classifications traditionally a class, but raised to an unranked clade including other vertebrate classes in modern classifications traditionally a class, but raised to an unranked clade including other vertebrate classes in modern classifications traditionally a class, but raised to an unranked clade including other vertebrate classes in modern classifications]. It is extant.

It was corrected as Osteichthyes by Sepkoski (2002); it was reranked as the unranked clade Osteichthyes by Long (2011).

It was assigned to Vertebrata by Huxley (1880), Thurmond and Jones (1981) and Shoshani et al. (1989); to Chordata by Sepkoski (2002); to Gnathostomata by Johanson et al. (2007); and to Gnathostomata by Dineley and Metcalf (1999), Meyer and Zardoya (2003) and Long (2011).