'Dalston' probably means the farm of a man called Deorlaf.
It was written Derleston in 1294. John Rocque’s map of 1746 shows Dalston as a small village further east along Dalston Lane, with Kingsland centred on the crossroads here. When the North London Railway opened its line to Broad Street in 1865, it called the junction and the new station Dalston Junction, and the area around it came to be known by the station’s name.