'anthranilate' originates from modern chemical naming, specifically from the adjective 'anthranilic' combined with the suffix '-ate' (used for salts or esters); the suffix '-ate' ultimately comes from Latin/Greek chemical/grammatical endings.

'anthranilic' (adjective) was formed from the name for derivatives of anthranilic acid (the common name for o-aminobenzoic acid) in 19th-century chemical literature, and adding '-ate' produced 'anthranilate' for salts/esters.

Initially, the terms referred to derivatives of anthranilic acid in chemical reports; over time they crystallized into the systematic name 'anthranilate' meaning specifically a salt or ester (or the corresponding anion) of anthranilic (o-aminobenzoic) acid.