Dinotheriidae was named by Bonaparte (1845) [also said to be 1850]. It is not extant. Its type is Deinotherium. It is the type family of Deinotherioidea.

It was corrected as Deinotheriidae by Simpson (1945), Mahboubi et al. (1984), Carroll (1988), Shoshani and Tassy (1996), McKenna and Bell (1997), Sach and Heizmann (2001), Huttunen and Göhlich (2002), Koufos et al. (2003), Pickford (2003), Shoshani and Tassy (2005), Geraads et al. (2005), Christiansen (2007), Sanders et al. (2010), Aiglstorfer et al. (2014), Alba et al. (2020).

It was assigned to Sirenia by Bonaparte (1845); to Deinotheria by Scott (1873); to Proboscidia by Lydekker (1880), Cope (1889); to Proboscidea by Flower and Lydekker (1891); to Deinotherioidea by Simpson (1945); to Proboscidea by McKenna and Bell (1997); to Elephantiformes by Sach and Heizmann (2001); to Plesielephantiformes by Shoshani and Tassy (2005); to Proboscidea by Abel (1919), Huttunen and Göhlich (2002), Geraads et al. (2005); to Deinotherioidea by Carroll (1988), Koufos et al. (2003), Sanders et al. (2010); to Proboscidea by Cope (1889), Stefani (1916), Mahboubi et al. (1984), Shoshani and Tassy (1996), Pickford (2003), Christiansen (2007), Aiglstorfer et al. (2014); and to Deinotherioidea by Alba et al. (2020).