The origin of the village's name is unknown. Local lore is that the name "Roxana" was chosen to honor a "Queen Roxanne" of the Netherlands, inasmuch as the village owed its very existence to Netherlands-state-owned Royal Dutch Shell. But there had never been a Queen Roxanne of the Netherlands. The Dutch monarch at the time was Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. However, Royal Dutch/Shell Group also founded Roxana Petroleum Company in 1912 in Oklahoma to explore for and produce crude oil. Subsequently Shell built refineries near New Orleans in 1916 and at Wood River in 1918.