The first element, "lacht" (also spelled "leacht"), refers in Irish to a cairn or pile of stones, often raised over a grave or at a site of commemoration, sometimes associated with a local saint or a figure from early Christian tradition. The second element appears to contain "dauh" or "dubh", meaning dark or black, and "baun" or "bán", meaning white or fair, suggesting a personal name or epithet embedded in the monument's designation. These kinds of compound place-names are characteristic of early medieval commemorative sites scattered across the west of Ireland, where the physical marker and the memory of a person became fused into the landscape over centuries.

Altnabrocky itself is a small and relatively obscure townland in Mayo, and the monument it contains falls into a category of site that is easily overlooked precisely because it lacks the dramatic architecture of a round tower or the visible earthworks of a ringfort. Leachta, the plural form, are among the more understated survivals of early Irish religious practice, sometimes no more than a modest heap of stones tended by local custom long after any formal record of their origin had faded. The name Laghtdauhybaun suggests this particular example was associated with a named individual, though without further documentation the specific identity behind that name remains out of reach.