The site upon which Sea Lake is situated was first visited by colonists in 1838. Sea Lake may have been given its name by an early settler, Edward Eyre, from the Port Phillip area. Purportedly, the sea-like appearance of Lake Tyrrell inspired Eyre. An alternative version of the naming of Sea Lake comes from a surveyors report of the time when planning the township (which lies to the south of Lake Tyrrell). It is purported that a surveyor mistook a mark on hand drawings "see lake" which had been used by the author of the drawings to mark a landmark.