The genus Hermannia is named after Paul Hermann (1640-95), born in Halle, Saxony (Germany), for a long time a physician in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), he spent some time at the Cape where he collected many plants, returned to Europe and became Professor of botany at Leyden in Holland. The species name pinnata is from the Latin pinnatus meaning feathered or winged, and refers to the pinnately lobed leaves. The common name Doll's Rose (Poprosie in Afrikaans) for the genus refers to the way the petals of some species are twisted in such a way that the flower resembles a miniature rose.

Hermannia pinnata was named by Linnaeus in his Species Plantarum of 1753 but he later moved it into the genus Mahernia in his Mantissa Plantarum in 1767. Bergius described a different specimen of the same species as Hermannia verticillata in 1767, and in the same year, Linnaeus described that specimen as Mahernia verticillata. In 1895 K. Schumann put the genus Mahernia into synonymy under Hermannia, placing Mahernia as a section of Hermannia, and raising it to subgeneric rank in 1900. It was only much later, his findings published in 1974, that Bernard De Winter tracked down Linnaeus's original type specimen for H. pinnata and confirmed that they are one and the same species. The earlier name H. pinnata was conserved and M. verticillata reduced to a synonym.

Hermannia pinnata was collected at the Cape by Francis Masson who introduced it to cultivation in Europe in 1774. It was illustrated by William Curtis in 1794 under the name Mahernia pinnata or Winged Mahernia.

Hermannia belongs in the Malvaceae (hibiscus, mallow and cotton family), and was previously placed in the Sterculiaceae (sterculia family). Hermannia is a genus of ± 180 species that occur mainly in southern Africa: ± 162 species widespread in southern Africa, 11 species in tropical Africa with ± 30 southern Africa species that also occur in tropical Africa, 3 American species and 1 or more Australian species.