It was surveyed by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey in 1953, and so named by the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee because the island lies in an area where there is a frequent occurrence of "brash ice" (an accumulation of floating ice made up of fragments not more than 2 m across).

[1] The island has been identified as a 63 ha Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports about 166,000 breeding pairs of pygoscelid penguins – probably mainly either Adélie or chinstrap penguins – based on a 2014 estimate from satellite imagery.

[2] This article incorporates public domain material from "Brash Island".

Geographic Names Information System.

This Joinville Island group location article is a stub.