'para-aminodiphenylamine' originates from Modern English chemical nomenclature, composed from the combining forms 'para-' (from Greek 'para' used in chemistry to denote the 1,4-relationship on an aromatic ring), 'amino' (from 'amine', coined from 'ammonia' + -ine), 'diphenyl' ('di-' from Greek meaning 'two' + 'phenyl', coined in 19th-century organic chemistry from 'phenol'/'phenyl'), and 'amine' (from French/German chemical terminology meaning an organic derivative of ammonia).

'para-' was adopted into chemical usage in the 19th century from Greek; 'amine' and 'phenyl' were coined in the 19th-century organic chemistry literature (German/French sources), 'diphenylamine' arose as the name for the molecule with two phenyl groups attached to an amine nitrogen, and later the 'para-amino' prefix was combined to indicate an additional amino substituent at the para position, producing the modern concatenated name 'para-aminodiphenylamine'.

Initially, the component roots referred separately to positional notation ('para-'), an amino function ('amino/amine'), and the phenyl group; over time these morphemes were combined by systematic chemical nomenclature to form a single name denoting a specific substituted aromatic amine as used today.