Named after Afrikanische Straße (‘African Street’) in Wedding’s African Quarter.
The street was named after the continent of Africa in 1906. Before the First World War, Carl Hagenbeck planned a zoo-like park in today’s Volkspark Rehberge, where he wanted to show animals and people from Germany’s African colonies. The war stopped the plan, but many of the quarter’s African street names had already been given and remain. The station’s former subtitle, Friedrich-Ebert-Siedlung, recalled a housing estate built in 1929–1931.