A. Adams named the genus from Mino-Sima, the little island near Niphon (Japan).[1] Minolia was in older textbooks regarded as a subgenus of Margarita Leach, 1819 (itself now a synonym of Margarites Gray, 1847).
The thin, delicate, smooth shell is depressed and widely umbilicated. The whorls are rounded or angulated. The spire is depressed. The sculpture is finely decussated. The aperture is circular. The outer lip and columella thin, simple, acute. The umbilicus is simple and contains no spiral, callous internal funicle or rib.[3]