In December 2018, Dal Sasso, Simone Maganuco and Andrea Cau named and described the specimen as the type species Saltriovenator zanellai. The generic name combines a reference to Saltrio with Latin, venator, "hunter", a common suffix in the names of theropods. The authors pointed out that a venator is also a type of Roman gladiator. The specific name honours Zanella. Because the article was published in an electronic publication, Life Science Identifiers were necessary to make the name valid. These are 8C9F3B56-F622-4C39-8E8B-C2E890811E74 for the genus and BDD366A7-6A9D-4A32-9841-F7273D8CA00B for the species. Saltriovenator is the third dinosaur named from Italy, the first from the Alps and the second theropod from Italy, after Scipionyx.
