The genus Ocypode was first established by the German entomologist Friedrich Weber in 1795, using the type species Cancer ceratophthalmus described by the German naturalist Peter Simon Pallas in 1772 [REF].
Ocypode was previously the only genus classified under the ghost crab subfamily Ocypodinae until 2013, when Katsushi Sakai and Michael Türkay reclassified the gulf ghost crab into a separate genus, Hoplocypode.