A semi-relativistic potential model is adopted to calculate the mass spectra of charmed and charmed-strange meson states up to the 2D excitations. The strong decay properties are further analyzed with a chiral quark model by using the numerical wave functions obtained from the potential model. Based on our good descriptions of the mass and decay properties for the low-lying well-established states, we give a quark model classification for the high mass resonances observed in recent years. In the D-meson family, D 0 (2550) can be classified as the radially excited state D(2 1 S 0 ); D * 3 (2750) and D 2 (2740) can be classified as the second orbital excitations D(1 3 D 3 ) and D(1D ′ 2 ), respectively; D * J (3000) may be a candidate of D(1 3 F 4 ) or D(2 3 P 2 ); while D J (3000) may favor the high mass mixed state D(2P ′ 1 ); however, there still exist puzzles for understanding the natures of D * 1 (2600) and D * 1 (2760), whose decay properties cannot be well explained with either pure D(2 3 S 1 ) and D(1 3 D 1 ) states or their mixing. In the D s -meson family, D * s3 (2860) favors the D s (1 3 D 3 ) assignment; D * s1 (2700) and D * s1 (2860) may favor the mixed states |(S D) 1 L and |(S D) 1 H via the 2 3 S 1 -1 3 D 1 mixing, respectively; D sJ (3040) may favor D(2P 1 ) or D(2P ′1 ), or corresponds to a structure contributed by both D(2P 1 ) and D(2P ′ 1 ); however, the newly observed resonance D s0 (2590) + as an assignment of D s (2 1 S 0 ), neither the mass nor the width can be well understood in the present study. Many missing excited D-and D s -meson states have a relatively narrow width, they are most likely to be observed in their dominant decay channels in future experiments.