'Athapascan' originates from the English place-name 'Athabasca', which itself comes from the Cree word 'aðapaskāw' (often rendered 'athapaskaw' or 'athabasca'), where the elements meant roughly 'where there are' + 'reeds/grass' (i.e., 'where there are reeds').

'Athapascan' changed through variant English spellings such as 'Athabascan' and 'Athabaskan'; the ethnolinguistic term was formed in the 19th century from the place-name 'Athabasca' (from Cree 'aðapaskāw') and came to be applied to the peoples and languages of that wider family.

Initially tied to the place-name meaning 'where there are reeds' (the lake/river region), the term shifted to refer first to local peoples of that area and later broadened to denote the larger language family and related peoples now called Athapascan/Athabaskan.