But last month the Ossining Village Board asked the State Department of Correctional Services to change the name of the prison back to Sing Sing. This week, officials in Albany approved the change.

In seeking the change, village officials and residents said they were not trying to disassociate the village again from its most notorious institution. Quite the opposite - many here say they hope they will able to use the Sing Sing name to attract tourists.

''Our history is tied to that prison,'' explained Stephen T. Tavano, a village trustee who comes from a fourth generation of Ossining families and is a nephew of James Sullivan, the prison's superintendent. ''It is the most popular site we have here in Ossining and I'd like to see it become a tourist attraction. I never understood why the state changed the name in the first place.''

For that matter, neither did a lot of people in Albany, who, according to Louis J. Ganim, a spokesman for Thomas A. Coughlin 3d, the Commissioner of Correction, were ''more than happy'' to accede to the wishes of the villagers.

Edward Wheeler, a former Mayor of Ossining, doesn't think the name change is ''going to make a bit of difference,'' as far as the village is concerned.

''No one here ever stopped calling it Sing Sing,'' said Mr. Wheeler, who owns a stationery store on Main Street. ''The people here aren't as disturbed by the prison as some may think.''

The relationship between the village and the prison, though uneasy in decades past, has improved in recent years, residents said. Inmates from the prison have worked on two community projects, painting a church and doing some cement work at the Ossining Volunteer Ambulance Corps.

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The Village Board recently expressed an interest in expanding the community service program, to have inmates work on projects that would not interfere with work done by local unions. ''But, no, prisoners do not walk up and down the streets with the rest of the villagers,'' said Roberta Arminio, president of the Ossining Historical Society, shooting down what she described as one of the ''wild rumors'' circulating outside town.

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''And the lights inside homes here did not go dim when there was an execution at the prison,'' she said. ''That's another outside rumor.''

Sing Sing took in its first inmates in 1828, when 150 convicts were shipped down the Hudson River by barge from upstate Auburn Prison. The name Sing Sing comes from an Indian tribe named Sint Sincks, meaning ''stone upon stone.'' The site was chosen because of the village's large marble quarry. The name Ossining is derived from Sing Sing.

Years later, when criminals were sent ''up the river'' from New York City they went to Sing Sing, which was also known as the Big House and the Bastille on the Hudson. The facility is 30 miles from New York City in Westchester County.

Thousands of felons - including Charles (Lucky) Luciano, the organized-crime figure; Willie Sutton, the bank robber, and David Berkowitz, the 'Son of Sam' killer - took the trip to the prison.

In 1891, Sing Sing was designated as the only state institution where capital punishment would be carried out. The electric chair was installed that year and took 614 lives before it was removed in 1969. Among those executed were Louis (Lepke) Buchalter, head of Murder Inc., and Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the only American civilians put to death for espionage.

Not all in this village of 20,000 are happy that the prison is a neighbor.

In 1964 Albert Schatz and Kenneth Ritchie, whose backyards overlooked the courtyards of the facility, established the Jericho Committee. The committee's goal was to go beyond that of the biblical Joshua - getting the walls to tumble - and eliminate the prison itself.

''It was on one of those clear days, when I was gazing at the river that I realized what a shame it was that one of the best views of the Hudson could only be seen from inside a prison,'' Mr. Ritchie recalled the other day. ''That prison is located on prime real estate, probably the most valuable in town. It's a developer's dream.'' A Developer's Plan

Two years ago, the committee was able to get the State Legislature to turn over the unoccupied warden's house and 10 cliff-top acres, ripe for luxury development, to the village for $1. A developer is working on a plan for the site.

But the committee is no closer to shutting down the prison than it was 20 years ago.

In fact, there are those in Ossining, Mr. Ritchie and Mr. Schatz among them, who are convinced that in changing the name, the state is sending signals that Sing Sing will not be closed any time soon.

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Mr. Sullivan, the superintendent, took over in January.

''I doubt if this town will ever rid itself of the association with the prison,'' he said. ''I don't think too many people here really care about the name. They know that Ossining will always be known as the home of Sing Sing.''