‘Rockaway’ comes from a Lenape name that may have meant ‘place of sands’.
The name is a corruption of an original Lenape name, recorded in spellings such as Rechouwakie and Reckowacky; other interpretations include ‘lonely place’ and ‘place of waters bright’. Mott Avenue is named for landowner Benjamin Mott, who gave the Long Island Rail Road land for a depot. The station itself began as a railroad station before it became a subway station in 1958.