The name of the water body comes from Hudson's Bay Company trappers who cached their furs along the Sacramento River and smaller tributaries, one of which became known to them as Cache Creek. One of their camps, recognized by early settlers as French Camp, was situated in a grove of oaks on the north bank of Cache Creek one mile (1.6 km) east of the present town of Yolo, California. Cache Creek was originally known to the Hudson's Bay Company trappers as "Rivière la Cache".