Corn crakes were first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae as Rallus crex, but was subsequently moved to the genus Crex, created by German naturalist and ornithologist Johann Matthäus Bechstein in 1803, and named Crex pratensis. The earlier use of crex gives it priority over Bechstein's specific name pratensis, and leads to the current name of Crex crex. The binomial name, Crex crex, from the ancient Greek κρεξ, is onomatopoeic, referring to the crake's repetitive grating call. The common name was formerly spelt as a single word, corncrake, but the official version is now corn crake. The English names refer to the species habit of nesting in dry hay or cereal fields, rather than marshes used by most members of this family.