The northern wheatear was first formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the 10th edition of his "Systema Naturae" as "Motacilla oenanthe". The species is now placed in the genus "Oenanthe" that was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot in 1816. The generic name, "Oenanthe", is also the name of a plant genus, the water dropworts, and is derived from the Greek "ainos" "wine" and "anthos" "flower", from the wine-like scent of the flowers. In the case of the wheatear, it refers to the birds' return to Greece in the spring at the time that the grapevines blossom.