Before the official naming of the street, the street was called tit lok a-ek bue-tiau koi in Hokkien, meaning the “last street in Telok Ayer” as it was unnamed.[2]
In 1895, after the town area of Singapore is levelled and drained and the area divided into various, various public streets were declared in the new area, including McCallum Street. The street is named after Major Henry McCallum, who was a colonial engineer in Singapore in the 1890s.[3]