The short-tailed snake's tail comprises less than ten percent of the snake's total length, hence the common name. Named by A. Erwin Brown in 1890, Stilosoma extenuatum derives its generic name from the Greek stylos for pillar and soma for body. This refers to the stiffness of the short-tailed snake's body, which is caused by its wide and inflexible column of unusually short vertebrae. The specific name, extenuatum, is Latin for thin or slender.