Named after the lane, said to recall Daniel Rayner, a local farmer.
The Rayner family moved from Ruislip to Pinner at the start of the 19th century, and fields called Upper and Lower Rayners Field appear in a conveyance of 1856. The lane probably took the name before the family left in the 1870s; it was also often called Bourne Lane, because it crossed several streams. The station opened in 1906 as Rayners Lane Halt.