Starting with Mildred Seaver's introductions where she named most (but not all) of her hostas with the first word being "Sea", many originators have followed suit in using a key identifying word or phrase for their hostas. Some series have only a few cultivars while others such as the 'Lakeside' series of Mary Chastain include over 200 hostas.

Some series names are totally unique to a single originator. However, a few series' names may be used for the occasional cultivar from another hybridizer/originator. For example, the "American" series from Van Wade includes a large number of hostas but there are several other plants with American in their name from others. In our database lists, we have tried to include only the names from a single originator who started the series. For some, we have two categories, one for the series and one for all hostas that contain that particular word in the name.