'Antipatharia' originates from New Latin, specifically derived from the genus name 'Antipathes', where the Greek prefix 'anti-' meant 'against' and 'pathos' meant 'suffering' or 'feeling'.

'Antipathes' existed in classical Greek; the name was adopted into scientific Latin for a genus of black corals in the 18th–19th century, and New Latin formed the ordinal name 'Antipatharia' to denote the broader group of related corals.

Initially the element referred to the genus name and its Greek sense; over time it came to denote the taxonomic order of black corals in modern zoological nomenclature.