The bigger village's name, Hefersweiler, has the common German placename ending "—weiler", which as a standalone word means “hamlet” (originally “homestead”), to which is prefixed an element that according to researchers Dolch and Greule goes back to a personal name “Hunfrid”. Thus, the name's original meaning would have been “Hunfrid’s homestead”. The name appears for the first time in a 1223 document as "Hunfrideswilre". Later forms that the name took are "Hunfertswilre" (1377), "Hunfritzwyller" (1519) and "Hinfurßwiller" (1544). Close to the current form is the 1779 form "Heffersweiler".