Named after Rockaway Avenue, which was first called Paca Avenue.
Eugene Armbruster’s history of Brooklyn’s Eastern District says the avenue was first called Paca Avenue, after William Paca, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The word ‘Rockaway’, as in the Rockaways, comes from a Munsee (Lenape) place name that colonists wrote down in many spellings, such as Rechouwakie or Reckowacky.