The chattering 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 garrulus.

[2] The specific epithet garrulus is Latin and means "chattering", "babbling" or "noisy".

[3] Linnaeus cited "The Scarlet 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 to make a drawing of the live bird at the home of the Whig politician Robert Walpole.

[5] The chattering lory is now placed in the genus Lorius that was introduced in 1825 by the Irish zoologist Nicholas Aylward Vigors.