diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index f3b925076a..90d2cf829b 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -12,6 +12,8 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 
 ## Unreleased
 
+- `opentelemetry-api`: Fix `AttributeError` on Python 3.9 when invalid type passed to attributes
+  ([#4933](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/pull/4933))
 - `opentelemetry-sdk`: Drop unused Jaeger exporter environment variables (exporter removed in 1.22.0)
   ([#4918](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/issues/4918))
 - `opentelemetry-sdk`: Clarify timeout units in environment variable documentation
diff --git a/opentelemetry-api/src/opentelemetry/attributes/__init__.py b/opentelemetry-api/src/opentelemetry/attributes/__init__.py
index 5116c2fdd8..0602c11100 100644
--- a/opentelemetry-api/src/opentelemetry/attributes/__init__.py
+++ b/opentelemetry-api/src/opentelemetry/attributes/__init__.py
@@ -39,6 +39,15 @@
 _logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
 
+def _get_type_name(tp: type) -> str:
+    """Get the name of a type, handling typing module edge cases on Python 3.9."""
+    name = getattr(tp, "__name__", None)
+    if name is None:
+        # Handle typing module types like Sequence, Mapping that don't have __name__ on Python 3.9
+        name = getattr(tp, "_name", str(tp))
+    return name
+
+
 def _clean_attribute(
     key: str, value: types.AttributeValue, max_len: Optional[int]
 ) -> Optional[Union[types.AttributeValue, Tuple[Union[str, int, float], ...]]]:
@@ -113,7 +122,7 @@ def _clean_attribute(
         "sequence of those types",
         type(value).__name__,
         key,
-        [valid_type.__name__ for valid_type in _VALID_ATTR_VALUE_TYPES],
+        [_get_type_name(valid_type) for valid_type in _VALID_ATTR_VALUE_TYPES],
     )
     return None
 
@@ -190,7 +199,7 @@ def _clean_extended_attribute_value(  # pylint: disable=too-many-branches
     except Exception:
         raise TypeError(
             f"Invalid type {type(value).__name__} for attribute value. "
-            f"Expected one of {[valid_type.__name__ for valid_type in _VALID_ANY_VALUE_TYPES]} or a "
+            f"Expected one of {[_get_type_name(valid_type) for valid_type in _VALID_ANY_VALUE_TYPES]} or a "
             "sequence of those types",
         )