It is threatened by habitat loss, and until 2016 was classified by BirdLife International as Critically Endangered, with a current estimated population of between 200 and 800.

The binomial name of this bird commemorates the American naturalist Frederick Albion Ober.

The Montserrat oriole was formally described in 1880 by the American amateur ornithologist George Newbold Lawrence from a specimen collected on the island Montserrat during an expedition to the West Indies led by the US naturalist Frederick Albion Ober.

Lawrence introduced the current binomial name Icterus oberi, with the specific epithet chosen to honour Ober.

[2] The genus Icterus was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760.