The hooded plover was formally described in 1818 by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot under the current binomial name Charadrius cucullatus.

[3] The binomial name Charadrius cucullatus was at one time treated as a junior synonym of Charadrius rubricollis Gmelin, 1789,[4][5] but in 1998 the American ornithologist Storrs L. Olson designated a lectotype for C. rubricollis and made it a junior synonym of Tringa lobata Linnaeus, 1758, now the red-necked phalarope Phalaropus lobatus.

[8] This was confirmed by another study published in 2022,[9] and as a result the hooded plover was moved back to Charadrius.

A clutch of 1–3 eggs is laid from August to March, which includes also the peak of the Austral summer tourist season in its range and it is thereby heavily impacted by human activities.

For breeding it will dig a shallow scrape in sand or gravel above high-water mark and line it with pebbles, seaweed, and other debris.

[16] The population of hooded plovers has declined in eastern Australia as a result of disturbance by people, dogs, cats and horses, as well as predation by silver gulls (Larus novaehollandiae), ravens (Corvus spp) and introduced foxes.