The Polynesian wattled honeyeater was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[2] The specific epithet is from Latin caruncula meaning "a small piece of flesh" and hence wattled.

[3] Gmelin based his description on the "wattled creeper" that had been described in 1782 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his book A General Synopsis of Birds.

Latham had examined a specimen from Tonga in the collection of the Leverian Museum in London.

The species were split based on the results of molecular phylogenetic study published in 2014.