The name Brachycorythis, is derived from the Greek word brachys, which means ‘short’ and korys, korythos, which means ‘helmet’, referring to the cucullate labellum (cucculate means cup-shaped, and a labellum (or lip) is a modified petal found in all orchids).

The species name conica, means ‘cone-shaped’, in reference to the shape of the nectar-producing spur, which is located at the base of the flower.

The subspecies name transvaalensis, meaning of the Transvaal, is in reference to the old Transvaal Province of South Africa prior to 1994, to which the species is endemic, i.e. it occurs nowhere else in the world.

This species was initially misidentified as Brachycorythis tenuior, a close relative, and illustrated as such in Flowering Plants of Africa in 1933, until it was later realised that it was in fact a separate species; which was then (1955) named as a new species by the Kew botanist and orchid scientist, Victor Samuel Summerhays (1897–1974).

The genus Brachycorythis is comprised 36 species and is distributed mostly in Africa with 24 species; a further 12 species occur in Asia. In southern Africa there are seven species, six of which are in found in the eastern Provinces from the Eastern Cape to Limpopo, with one species occurring in the southern Cape. Of the seven South African species, only this species (Brachycorythis conica subsp. transvaalensis) is threatened with extinction.

This species was overlooked by botanical scientists and conservationists for many years. Since 1956, no records of this species were recorded in the Pretoria National Herbarium, until 2007, when the population in western Gauteng was rediscovered quite by accident. Since then much research work has been done to establish the conservation status of the species. So far only the western Gauteng population remains to be a viable option for conservation, although threats of urbanization and habitat destruction still persist.

This species has until now had no recorded common names, as a result the name Albertina Sisulu Orchid has been given, in commemoration of the wife of the apartheid stalwart, Walter Sisulu. Albertina Sisulu (aka Ma Sisulu, (1918–2011), was an anti-apartheid activist born in Transkei in 1918, the same year the orchid was first discovered. In 1955, Ma Sisulu joined the ANC Womens League and took part in the launch of the Freedom Charter, the same year the orchid was named by the Kew botanist and orchid scientist, V.S. Summerheyes. In 1956, Ma Sisulu joined Helen Joseph and Sophia Williams-De Bruyn, in a march of 20 000 women against the apartheid pass laws to the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the same year the orchid was last seen in Gauteng, until its rediscovery in 2007 by a horticulturist working at the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens.