The generic name combines Κιμωλία, Kimolia, the white clay of the island Kimolos (kimolia means "chalk" in New Greek) with a Latinised Greek πτερόν, pteron, "wing".
•
In 1851, James Scott Bowerbank named and described some remains found in a chalk pit at Burham near Maidstone in Kent, as a new species of Pterodactylus: Pterodactylus cuvieri.