The purple-naped lory was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Psittacus domicella.

[4] Linnaeus based his description on "The second Black-capped Lory" that had been described and illustrated in 1751 by the English naturalist George Edwards in his book A Natural History of Uncommon Birds.

The specimen had been brought to London from the East Indies and Edwards was able made a drawing of it at the home of the naturalist and collector Hans Sloane.

[6] The purple-naped lory is now placed in the genus Lorius that was introduced in 1825 by the Irish zoologist Nicholas Aylward Vigors.

It has green wings, blue thighs, and a variable approximately transverse yellow band across the chest.