When the settlement emerged in the first half of the 20th century, it was given the same name as the inlet - Pond Inlet. The Inuit call the place Mittimatalik, d. H. "Mittimas Platz". Who Mittima is or was is unknown.

The area between the current settlements of Pond Inlet and Iglulik has been inhabited for about 4,000 years by people of the Dorset culture and then the Thule culture, the ancestors of today's Inuit, who call themselves "Tununirmiut" (after Tuniniq, which means "land of" means face turns away from the sun ”).