Although the town itself has only been in existence for just over a century, the origins of the name Anadyr are much older. The name initially derives from the Yukaghir word "any-an" meaning "river". When Semyon Dezhnev met Yukaghir peoples in the area and the indigenous name was corrupted to form "Onandyr", later Anadyrsk, the name of theostrog (fort) upstream of the present-day settlement, from which the current name is derived.
Pyotr Baranov (brother of Alexander Andreyevich Baranov) established a trading post near the present town site in the early 19th century; Chukchi settlement around it formed the village of Vyon in 1830.
The present settlement was founded by L. F. Grinevetsky, who sailed into the Anadyrsky Liman on July 9, 1889. The town's first building was completed twelve days later and as it was the name-day of Tsaritsa Maria Feodorovna the town was named Mariinsk. Since this was not the first time that a town had been named Mariinsk in Russia, the name was swiftly changed to Novo-Mariinsk.
The presence of communism was not initially welcomed by the merchants of the town. The first Revkom was founded on January 16, 1919 and barely lasted two weeks before its members were thrown out of the town and summarily executed. However, the merchants of the town fared worse eighteen months later when the Bolsheviks returned and began to reorganise urban life.
During World War II an airfield was built here for the Alaska-Siberian (ALSIB) air route used to ferry American Lend-Lease aircraft to the Eastern Front
