Argentine paleontologists Rodolfo Coria and Jorge Orlando Calvo named Anabisetia in 2002. The generic name honors the late Ana Maria Biset, an influential archeologist from Neuquén Province in Argentina, where the remains of this animal were found. The one named species is called A. saldiviai, after Roberto Saldivia Blanco, a local farmer who had discovered the fossils in 1985 and brought them to the attention of science in 1993.[1] The finds had already been reported in the scientific literature in 1996.