When in 1753 Carl Linnaeus described this bolete he called it Boletus luteus. Later, in 1888, Lucien Quélet moved it from the Boletus genus and named it Ixocomus luteus. The currently accepted scientific name of the Slippery Jack, Suillus luteus, dates from a 1796 publication by the French mycologist Henri François Anne de Roussel (1748 - 1812).