Named after Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden, who owned the land.
Pratt, a radical 18th-century lawyer and politician, acquired the manor of Kentish Town through marriage and in 1791 began granting leases for houses to be built there. His earldom took its name from his estate, Camden Place in Chislehurst, Kent, itself named after the historian William Camden, who lived there from 1609. The name Camden Town appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1822.