This basionym of this little inkcap mushrooms dates from 1772, when it was described in Flora Carniolica by Italian mycologist Giovani Antonio Scopoli (1723 - 1788) under the name Agaricus stercorarius. Elias Magnus Fries sanctioned the specific epithet in his Hymenomycetes europae of 1874, when he transferred this species to the genus Coprinus.