The genus Zaluzianskya was named after Adam Zalusiansky von Zaluzian (1558-1613). He was a Bohemian physician and a botanist, and a lecturer and an administrator at Charles University in Prague. He authored the Methodus Herbariae Libri Tres in 1592. He was the first to argue for the separation of botany from medicine, and for a universal classification of plants, years before Linnaeus. The species name villosa is derived from the Latin villus, which means ‘hair’ and -osus meaning ‘full of’, thus villosus means ‘full of shaggy hairs’ or ‘shaggy’ and refers to a covering of shaggy hair.

The genus Zaluzianskya belongs to the figwort family Scrophulariaceae, which is one of 26 families in the order Lamiales. It contains around 65 genera and 1 700 species, which are distributed all over the world. Other noteworthy genera in this family are Diascia, Nemesia and Buddleja. There are over 50 species of Zaluzianskya in southern Africa. The annuals are mostly found in the Western Cape, while the perennials are found in the summer-rainfall areas of eastern southern Africa.