History of the taxon:

Etymology of the name:

Taxon: Tectiviridae; Proposal: Ratification 1978; : ; ICTV Report: ; Reference: PMID: 7793328

from the Latin tectus, meaning "covered",  referring to a lipid envelope covering the DNA compartment and separating the genomic DNA from a protein capsid in viruses of the family; the suffix -viridae for family taxa