Common names for the species in Spanish include camotillo (in Peru) and bacaladillo (in Chile).

[1] The mote sculpin was first described by the American zoologist Howard Walton Clark in 1937 from the harbour at Valparaiso in Chile.

[5] The generic name Normanichthys being given in honour of the British ichthyologist John Roxborough Norman who was taking part in Discovery Investigations at the time, undertaking research into whales and their ecology in the Southern Ocean.

The specific name honours Charles Templeton Crocker, a San Francisco based philanthropist and self-proclaimed explorer, the holotype was collected from his yacht Zaca in 1934-35.

[6] The mote sculpin is a fairly slender fish with a maximum length of about 11 cm (4.3 in), with the anus approximately halfway along the body.