The queen conch was originally described from a shell in 1758 by Swedish naturalist and taxonomist Carl Linnaeus, who originated the system of binomial nomenclature. Linnaeus named the species "Strombus gigas", which remained the accepted name for over 200 years. Linnaeus did not mention a specific locality for this species, giving only "America" as the type locality. The specific name is the ancient Greek word "" (), which means "giant", referring to the large size of this snail compared with almost all other gastropod molluscs. "Strombus lucifer", which was considered to be a synonym much later, was also described by Linnaeus in "Systema Naturae".