[2] In 1751 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the black-billed amazon in the fourth volume of his A Natural History of Uncommon Birds.

Edwards based his hand-coloured etching on a live bird that he had bought from a dealer in London.

[3] When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the tenth edition, he placed the black-billed amazon with the other parrots in the genus Psittacus.

Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name Psittacus agilis and cited Edwards' work.

[4] The black-billed amazon is now one of 33 parrots placed in the genus Amazona that was introduced by the French naturalist René Lesson in 1830.

[5][6] The genus name is a Latinized version of the name Amazone given to them in the 18th century by the Comte de Buffon, who believed they were native to Amazonian jungles.