Benjamin Franklin made a pair of early swim fins while he was a young boy living in Boston, Massachusetts near the river; they were two thin pieces of wood, about the shape of an art palette, which let him move faster than he usually did in the water. Other early inventors including Leonardo Di Vinci had toyed with the concept of swim fins.

Louis de Corlieu in France and Owen Churchill in the United States, working independently of each other, were the first to make swim fin a practical reality. Churchill's design caught the attention of the US Navy, which wanted to issue it to their underwater demolition teams in the early nineteen forties; and fins of his design can still be found in just about any sporting goods store or surf shop. Different types of fins eventually evolved to address the unique requirements of each community using them. Scuba divers, in particular, need large wide fins to enable them to overcome the water resistance caused by their diving equipment; snorkelers need lightweight flexible fins; ocean swimmers, bodysurfers, and lifeguards favor designs that stay on their feet when moving through large surf.

Some fins have a water vent through the blade, opening backwards on the underside and forwards on the upper side, as in the third image. As the hip joint is flexed, a jet of water blows backwards out of the vent in the fin. This type of fin is sometimes called a jetfin; but the name jetfin is correctly a trade name. For similar reasons some swim fins have the end of the blade split; this feature may have been copied from fishes' tails.