According to one source, it was named in honour of Dr. James F. Brander (1879-1963), a pioneer doctor of Edmonton. He was born at Northport, Nova Scotia, and started a practice in Ponoka in 1909 before moving to Edmonton in 1911. There he gained renown cultivating peonies. Another possible origin of the name is that the lake is part of a group of features surveyed along the 28th Baseline in the mid-1910s, and that it was named after a survey crew member.

Approximately 200 km north north-east of Fort McMurray.