Named after two crossing streets, Hoyt Street and Schermerhorn Street.
The station lies at their intersection, on the border of Downtown Brooklyn and Boerum Hill. Hoyt Street honours Charles Hoyt, a Manhattan developer who bought land nearby in 1833; Schermerhorn Street honours the Schermerhorn merchant family, by one account the brothers Abraham and Peter. In 2009 a council member proposed renaming the station after Michael Jackson, who had filmed his ‘Bad’ video there; the MTA rejected the idea.