The Montes Taurus are named after Taurus Mountains in southern Turkey. This name appeared on the lunar map due to Johannes Hevelius, who used to name lunar features after terrestrial ones. But he assigned this name (in the form Mons Taurus) to a completely different feature — one of bright rays of crater Tycho. The item of this article was designated as Taurica Chersonnesus, because Hevelius tried to establish a correspondence between lunar regions and regions of vicinity of Mediterranean sea, and on his map this lunar region corresponded to Crimea (historically known as Tauris or Tauric Chersonese). Later lunar cartographers began to call it Montes Taurus, and in 1935 this name was adopted by International Astronomical Union.