Vergenoeg means far enough in Afrikaans. The village got its name because it is where a group of San or Kalahari Bushmen were settled after cattle farming and colonial land ownership laws made their traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle impossible to maintain.

For Vergenoeg, this change in livelihood and culture has come to mean a chronic shortage of food due to dependency on deliveries of maize meal and diesel to pump water from bore holes.