Named after Great and Little Northfields, two large fields in the west of Ealing parish.
The fields existed in the late Middle Ages, when the area belonged to the manor of Coldhall, or West Ealing, and it stayed rural, covered in apple orchards, into the late 19th century. The station opened in 1908 as Northfield (Ealing), was renamed Northfields and Little Ealing in 1911, and took its present name in 1932.