The genus Brunia is most likely named after a contemporary of Linnaeus, the apothecary, Dr Cornelis Brun, who travelled in Russia and the Levant, although it could also be in commemoration of Dr Alexander Brown, a ship's surgeon and a collector who worked in the East Indies around 1690. The species name noduliflora means bearing flowers in nodules, from the Latin nodulus meaning small knot and flos meaning flower.

Brunia nodiflora is a synonym for both this species and the completely unrelated species Widdringtonia nodiflora. This is because when Linnaeus named the genus Brunia in 1753 he based his original description of B. nodiflora on a specimen that was subsequently discovered to be a sterile twig of Widdringtonia nodiflora.

This caused a nomenclature nightmare when it was discovered by Elizabeth Powrie in the 1970s. It meant that Brunia nodiflora was without a validly published type specimen or description; and that Brunia nodiflora L., the original description by Linnaeus, was the earliest name and specimen for the species then known as Widdringtonia cupressoides. Powrie tidied up the mess. She proposed the name W. cupressoides (L.) Engl. be changed to W. nodiflora (L.) Powrie, with Brunia nodiflora L. as the base name and synonym.

Linnaeus' mistaken specimen is recognised as the type specimen, and the original description by Linnaeus applies to this widdringtonia. Since Linnaeus' description of the genus Brunia in 1753, various other botanists had worked on the Brunia family, described new species and genera, and had reorganised the species and genera. To prevent serious upheaval in the nomenclature of the Bruniaceae, Powrie proposed that the more recently described genus Berzelia Brongn. be conserved over the older Brunia L. And to prevent the disappearance of the genus Brunia, she proposed that it be conserved and the nomenclature of the family preserved by returning to the more broad definition of the genus as described by Lamarck in 1785. Brunia nodiflora sensu auct., non L. is a synonym for B. noduliflora, i.e. descriptions of the species by all authors other than Linnaeus apply to this species.

Brunia noduliflora has no English common names but quite a few Afrikaans ones: fonteinbos meaning bush at the fountain or spring because these plants are often found growing next to running water; knoppiesbos or knoppies, meaning knobby bush, from the resemblance of the flower heads to little knobs; stompies, meaning little stumps, referring to the fact that after a fire all that's left of the burnt plants are stumps; volstruisies, meaning little ostriches, a name used by children referring to the flower heads on certain bushes affected by galls that suggest a number of little ostriches clustered together.

The Brunia family consists of 12 genera and 77 species, endemic to South Africa and concentrated in the south-western Cape. The 12 genera include Audouinia (1 species), Berzelia (12 species), Brunia (7 species), Linconia (3 species), Lonchostoma (5 species), Mniothamnea (2 species), Nebelia (6 species), Pseudobaeckea (4 species), Raspalia (16 species), Staavia (9 species), Thamnea (7 species) and Tittmannia (5 species).