Like the majority of the villages on Hatteras Island, Avon was "assigned" its current name by the U. S. Postal Service, presumably because the Indian names were too hard to pronounce and spell. Prior to the post office arriving in 1883, Avon's original name was Kinnakeet, and is used today by some native islanders.

This soundside fishing village is home to the Little Kinnakeet Lifesaving Station, one of seven built on the Outer Banks to aid crews caught in the rough, treacherous waters offshore. Little Kinnakeet, built in 1874, is being restored by the National Park Service to depict the small community of lifesavers and their families that served here. Big Kinnakeet Lifesaving Station, built in 1879, was located a few miles to the south. This is an area filled with the tradition of the surfmen.

Like many of North Carolina's barrier islands prior to the 1800s, the area around Avon had large maritime forests. But these were felled for the ship-building trades or encroachment by the villagers' feral animals. With the loss of the forests, the dunes began to migrate, pushed by the nearly ever-present winds. The dunes suffocated much of the remaining forest. Today, dune stabilization is a constant task.