The yellow ogre orchid was first formally described in 1906 by Frederick Manson Bailey from a specimen collected on Dunk Island by Edmund James Banfield and given the name Habenaria banfieldii. The description was published in the Queensland Agricultural Journal. In 1981 Bill Lavarack changed the name to Peristylus banfieldii. The specific epithet (banfieldii) honours the collector of the type specimen.
