 Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name "Colymbus major" in his catalogue of the "Planches Enluminées".Buffon mistakenly believed that his specimen had come from Cayenne in French Guiana.The great grebe is now placed in the genus "Podiceps" that was erected by the English naturalist John Latham in 1787.