 Shortly after the First Fleet's arrival at Port Jackson, Sydney, the bird gained the common name superb warbler. In the 1920s came common names wren and wren-warbler — both from its similarity to the European wren — and fairywren. The bird has also been called Mormon wren, a reference to observations of one blue-plumaged bird accompanied by many brown-plumaged birds, which were incorrectly assumed to be all female. The Ngarrindjeri people of the Murray River and Coorong regions called it waatji pulyeri, meaning "little one of the waatji (lignum) bush", and the Gunai called it deeydgun, meaning "little bird with long tail". Both it and the variegated fairywren were known as muruduwin to the local Eora and Darug inhabitants of the Sydney basin.
