The Maury River was called "a branch of the North River" before the name was changed within the past few decades. The United States Board on Geographic Names settled on "Maury River" as the stream's name in 1968. According to the Geographic Names Information System, the stream (or sections thereof) has also been known historically as the "North River" and "Calfpasture River". It is named in honor of Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury, and it travels past Lexington's Washington and Lee University and Virginia Military Institute, where Commodore Maury worked in his last years. There is a memorial tablet in stone to the commodore at Goshen Pass.