Naming deficits have been documented in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy. The left temporal lobe is known to host several core language functions needed for picture naming, including word retrieval. However, word retrieval deficits in patients with TLE have not been investigated in detail using paradigms eliciting semantic interference effects. This study included 9 patients with TLE who underwent a neuropsychological evaluation prior to electrode implantation, including the Boston Naming Test (BNT). Afterwards, they participated in a continuous naming task eliciting the cumulative semantic interference effect (CSIE). Our results align with the literature in finding further evidence that individuals with left TLE have naming deficits, as we found that, out of the total 9 participants tested, 5 had average RTs greater than 1.5 standard deviations above the controls’ average RT. Of those 5 participants, 4 scored in the impaired range on the BNT. However, the slope of the CSIE in most of our participants with TLE was similar to that of the controls, suggesting that even when the left temporal lobe is epileptogenic, word retrieval as indexed by the CSIE is not necessarily impacted. Only one participant showed a steeper semantic interference effect when compared to controls. This patient’s epileptic profile differed from that of the other patients in that this patient’ brain showed multiple epileptic foci in addition to the left hippocampal focus in addition to anterior right frontal chronic bleeds. This suggests that word retrieval as indexed through the CSIE involves a network of brain areas, and that damage to more than one of these regions is necessary to impact the CSIE.