'Brixton' means the stone of a man called Beorhtsige.
The name was first recorded as Brixiges stan in 1062; other accounts call him Brixi, a Saxon lord. His stone may have marked where the meetings of the Brixton hundred, a group of Surrey parishes, took place. Its site is unknown, but it is thought to have stood at the top of Brixton Hill, long before any settlement grew here.