Lycenchelys muraena was first formally described as Lycodes muraena by the Norwegian zoologist Robert Collett in 1878 with its type locality given as west-southwest of Bodø in Norway, at a depth of . In 1920 David Starr Jordan designated this Lycodes muraena as the type species of the genus Lycenchelys, which had been proposed by Theodore Gill in 1884 but which Gill had not given a type species for. The specific name is the Scientific name for moray eel and is a reference to the slender, eel-shaped body of this species.
