'arsonvalization' originates from the proper name 'Arsonval' (the French physicist Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval) combined with the English suffix '-ization', where 'Arsonval' refers to the eponymous inventor and '-ization' meant 'the process or result of'.

'arsonvalization' changed from the eponym 'Arsonval' and related 19th/early-20th-century terms such as 'Arsonvalism' or 'Arsonvalisation' used to describe the electrotherapeutic techniques developed or publicized by Arsonval, and eventually became the modern English formation 'arsonvalization'.

Initially it referred specifically to techniques and devices associated with Arsonval himself, but over time it evolved into a general term for therapeutic application of high-frequency currents.