The origin of the city's name "Nome" is debated. There are three theories. The first is that the name was given by Nome's founder, Jafet Lindeberg, an immigrant from Norway. Nome appears as a toponym in several places in Norway.

A second theory is that Nome received its name through an error: allegedly when a British cartographer copied an ambiguous annotation made by a British officer on a nautical chart, while on a voyage up the Bering Strait. The officer had written