The name recalls the Frankfurter Tor, an old city gate – though not on this spot.
The real Frankfurter Tor in the customs wall stood about 800 metres further west and was removed from 1867. The crossing here was named Frankfurter Tor in 1957 after its two towers by Hermann Henselmann, meant to look like a city gate. The station, opened in 1930 as Petersburger Straße, was renamed Bersarinstraße in 1946 and Frankfurter Tor in 1957; after further renamings in 1991 and 1996 it has carried that name again since 1998.