This mollymawk was once considered to be the same species as the Salvin's albatross, "Thalassarche salvini" and the Chatham albatross, "Thalassarche eremita", but they were split around 2004. In 1998, Robertson and Nunn suggested a four-way split including the white-capped albatross, "Thalassarche steadi". The three-way split was accepted by Brooke in 2004, the ACAP in 2006, SACC in 2008, and BirdLife International by 2000. James Clements was the last major holdout on the three-way split but later accepted it. The fourth split, "steadi", was only accepted by the ACAP in 2006, and BirdLife International in 2008. Finally, following Brooke, this species was shifted from "Diomedea" to "Thalassarche", which was generally agreed upon by most experts.