The village's name first appears in sources in a 7th-century Medieval Greek text as Στοβων ("Stovon"). It was also mentioned in a charter of Byzantine Emperor Basil II from 1019 after the conquest of the First Bulgarian Empire. The first reference in Old Bulgarian dates to 1378, when it appears in the Rila Charter of Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Shishman as the "town of Stob" (). The charter emphasizes the Rila Monastery's independence from nearby Stob, among other privileges, and notes that the monastery's lands and properties bordered the town.