The city was named after the Snov River on which it is situated. The city was called Shchors between 1935 and 2016, in honour of Nikolay Shchors. On 21 May 2016, Verkhovna Rada adopted decision to rename Shchors to Snovsk and Shchors Raion to Snovsk Raion according to the law prohibiting names of Communist origin.[2]