'Chorley' may mean the clearing of the ceorls, Anglo-Saxon peasants.
Ceorl is the word that gave us 'churl'. By 1278 the place was known as Bosco de Cherle, or Churl's Wood, perhaps doubling the 'wood' idea; after the Dissolution of the Monasteries it became Charleywoode. Another idea is Old English Cerola Leah, a woodland clearing with a meadow. The station opened in 1889 as Chorley Wood and took its present spelling in 1965.