The Sulawesi masked owl was first described by the German ornithologist Hermann Schlegel in 1866 as Strix rosenbergii, but was later included in the genus Tyto.[2] The specific name "rosenbergii" refers to the German surveyor and naturalist Hermann von Rosenberg who collected bird specimens in the East Indies and sent them to the National Museum of Natural History in Leiden to be classified.[3] There are two subspecies, T. r. rosenbergii (Schlegel, 1866), found in Sulawesi and Sangihe, and T. r. pelengensis Neumann, 1939, found in Peleng in the Banggai Island group. Other common names for this bird include Rosenberg’s owl, Rosenberg’s barn-owl, Sulawesi owl, Sulawesi barn-owl, Celebes barn-owl, Celebes masked-owl and Celebes owl.[2]