Named after Hostos Community College, honouring the Puerto Rican educator Eugenio María de Hostos.
Hostos (1839–1903) was also a philosopher and advocate of Puerto Rican independence. The City University of New York inaugurated the college named after him in 1970. In 2022 the New York State Legislature passed a bill renaming the station, until then 149th Street–Grand Concourse, to recognise the college's value to the community. It had opened in 1905 as Mott Avenue, the street later renamed the Grand Concourse.