The first formal description of the blue-winged teal was by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1766 in the twelfth edition of his Systema Naturae. He coined the binomial name Anas discors.[2] A molecular phylogentic study comparing mitochondrial DNA sequences published in 2009 found that the genus Anas, as then defined, was non-monophyletic.[3]
The genus was subsequently split into four monophyletic genera with ten species including the blue-winged teal moved into the resurrected genus Spatula.[4] This genus had been originally proposed by the German zoologist Friedrich Boie in 1822.[5][6] The name Spatula is the Latin for a "spoon" or "spatula". The specific epithet discors is the Latin for "different" or "at variance".[7]