The Navajo name for the peak, , rock with wings or winged rock, refers to the legend of the great bird that brought the Navajo from the north to their present lands. The name Shiprock or Shiprock Peak or Ship Rock derives from the peak's resemblance to an enormous 19th-century clipper ship. Americans first called the peak The Needle, a name given to the topmost pinnacle by Captain J. F. McComb in 1860. United States Geological Survey maps indicate that the name Ship Rock dates from the 1870s.