Malba is a subsection of the Whitestone neighborhood. Its name comes from the first letters of the last names of its five founders (the Malba Land Company): Maycock, Alling, Lewis, Bishop, and Avis.

The 163 acres that comprise Malba today were originally farmland purchased by William Ziegler, industrialist and president of the Royal Baking Powder Company, in the 1880s. A newly developed real estate trust bought the property circa 1905. The development of the tract into large plots began slowly in 1908 and the largest influx of home building happening in the 1920s.