Reed Street when it was officially listed by the City of Brooklyn in 1835 was spelled Reid. At that time Ried Street was said to run along the Gowanus Bay from Columbia to the East River. Today Reed Street only runs one block from Conover to Van Brunt Streets.

Reid Street could have been named after Samuel Chester Ried who was a naval officer and harbormaster of the Port of New York in the late 1810s, but this is just conjecture.