[1] The genus Dendropicos was introduced by the French ornithologist, Alfred Malherbe in 1849.

[2] The type species was subsequently designated as one of the subspecies of the cardinal woodpecker.

[3][4] The word Dendropicos comes from the Greek dendron meaning tree and pikos for woodpecker.

A 2015 molecular phylogenetic study that analysed nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences from pied woodpeckers found that Dendropicos was polyphyletic.

[7][8] The taxonomic committee of the British Ornithologists' Union have recommended an alternative arrangement of species in which the genera Dendrocoptes and Leiopicus are combined into a larger Dendropicos.