 The Dutch mycologist Christian Hendrik Persoon published the first official description of Geastrum quadrifidum in 1794, and later sanctioned this name in his 1801 Synopsis Methodica Fungorum (as Geastrum quadrifidum var. minus, a variety now considered synonymous with G. quadrifidum). Although the species had been previously described as Lycoperdon coronatum by Jacob Christian Schaeffer (1763) and Giovanni Antonio Scopoli (1772), then afterward as Geaster coronatus by Joseph Schröter (1889), the epithet coronatus is not to be used because of the existence of the sanctioned name.
