This species was first described as Aquila pelagica by Prussian naturalist Peter

Simon Pallas, in 1811.[5] The species name is the Ancient Greek pelagos "the open
sea/ocean".[6] Dutch naturalist Coenraad Jacob Temminck named it Falco leucopterus
"white winged eagle" in 1824,[7] and Heinrich von Kittlitz called it Falco
imperator in 1832.[8] George Robert Gray moved the species into the genus
Haliaeetus in 1849.[9]

"Steller's sea eagle" has been designated the official name by the International
Ornithologists' Union (IOC).[10] It is named after the German naturalist Georg
Wilhelm Steller.[11] It is also known as Steller's fish eagle, Pacific sea eagle or
white-shouldered eagle.[3] In Russian, the eagle has been called morskoi orel (sea
eagle), pestryi morskoi orel (mottled sea eagle) or beloplechii orlan (white-
shouldered eagle). In Japanese, it is called ?-washi (large eagle or great eagle).
[12] In Korean, the eagle is called chamsuri (true eagle).

A 1996 Analysis of the cytochrome b gene of mitochondrial DNA showed that Steller's
sea eagle diverged from a lineage that gave rise to the bald eagle and white-tailed
eagle around 3 to 4 million years ago. All three have yellow eyes, beaks, and
talons, unlike their next-closest relative, Pallas's fish eagle.[13]

This species is monotypic, although a dubious subspecies has been named; H. p.

niger.[14] The latter name was given to the population which lacked white feathers
except for the tail and supposedly was resident all year in Korea. Last seen in
1968 and long believed to be extinct, a female matching H. p. niger in appearance
was hatched in captivity in Tierpark Berlin (Germany) in 2001. Both its parents had
typical coloration, indicating that H. p. niger is an extremely rare dark morph
rather than a valid subspecies, as had been suggested earlier.[15][16] One of the
offspring of the dark Berlin female, a male hatched in 2014 that now lives in
Skandinavisk Dyrepark (Denmark), also is a dark morph