The genus Tritonia was named by the English botanist, J.B. Ker Gawler, in 1802. The word triton is Latin meaning weather vane. Ker Gawler named this genus triton due to how the arrangement of the stamens differs among the species. The species name gladiolaris means ‘resembling gladiolus’, and could refer to the genus Gladiolus, describing how this species looks limilar to some gladioli, or the Latin word gladiolus, meaning ‘a small sword’, referring to the narrow, sword-like leaves of these species.

This species was first described as Ixia gladiolaris by Lamarck in 1789. Its current identity is described by P. Goldblatt and J.C.Manning as Tritonia gladiolaris, published in Bothalia 36 in 2006. There has been a lot of taxonomic work done on this species and it has been described under many names, even in different genera, by different botanists over the years. This taxonomic work has led to this species having a lot of synonyms, namely: Gladiolus lineatus Salisb., Ixia gladiolaris Lam., Montbretia lineata (Salisb.) Baker. The most recent taxonomic work on Tritonia gladiolaris was done by Goldblatt & Manning published in Strelitzia 42 in 2020. They added the following as synonyms to Tritonia gladiolaris: Ixia striata, Ixia squalida var. stricta, Gladiolus venosus, Ixia reticulata, Tritonia tristis, Tritonia kraussii, Tritonia flavida, and Tritonia lineata var. parvifolia. Thus all the plants described under these names are now considered to be the same variable species, Tritonia gladiolaris. Many of the synonyms refer to the dark veins on the tepals, lineata means lined, striata means striped, venosus means veiny and reticulata means netted.