the species was first described by ludwig koch in 1877, as "theridium gemmosum". ("theridium" is an alternative spelling of "theridion".) koch did not explain the origin of the species name "gemmosum". the latin word ' means "set with jewels"; koch several times used the description "'", german for "mother of pearl". in 1879, octavius pickard-cambridge described what he considered to be a different although closely related species. he decided that was not a "theridion", and placed it in a new genus, "theridiosoma", as "t. argenteolum". eugène simon in 1881 recognized that koch's and pickard-cambridge's species were the same and united them under the current name "theridiosoma gemmosum".