Lake Heihai is an English clarification of the pinyin romanization of the Chinese name Hēi Hǎi, meaning Black Sea. (As with Qinghai Lake, the Chinese word for sea is sometimes used to translate the Mongolian naɣur (), which was once used ambiguously for all large bodies of water.) The lake is also known as Xīwángmǔ Yáochí (Jade Pond of the Queen Mother of the West) from an old legendary location in the Kunlun Mountains and sometimes confused with Lake Hala in the Qilian Mountains.