Named after Silvertown, which has nothing to do with silver.
The area was named after the factories of S. W. Silver and Co., which moved here from Greenwich in 1852 and set up a rubber works, at first to make waterproof clothing. West Silvertown is the name that came to be used for the area further west, where the Britannia Village housing was built in the 1990s; the station opened in 2005.