It was first published as Penstemon tweedyi by William Marriott Canby and Joseph Nelson Rose in March 1890, named in honor of Frank Tweedy, the first to collect it.

[3] Just a few months later, in June 1900, Louis Forniquet Henderson moved Tweedy's snowlover to the genus Chionophila.

He went on to compare it in detail to Chionophila jamesii, the only other species in the genus, ending with: "To sum up, then, the two plants resemble one another in the ovary and seeds, in the stamens fertile and sterile, in the upper parts of the corollas, in the leaves and their bases, and in their blackening when dried.

Henderson had considered placing Tweedy's snowlover in the genus Collinsia, but found greater similarity to Chionophila jamesii.

In C. jamesii, which is endemic to south central Wyoming, Colorado, and northern New Mexico, the inflorescence is dense and spikelike with overlapping flowers.

[8] Chionophila tweedyi is endemic to the northern Rocky Mountains in central Idaho and southwestern Montana.

In their publication of the new species, Canby and Rose described Tweedy as "a zealous collector in this region for the past eight years", and noted his authorship of Flora of the Yellowstone National Park.