Named after Lichtenberg, a village founded around 1230.
The village of Lichtenberg was first documented in 1288 and was granted town rights in 1907, before joining Berlin in 1920. The railway station opened in 1881 as Lichtenberg, was renamed Lichtenberg-Friedrichsfelde a year later because it lay closer to Friedrichsfelde, and has carried its present name since 1938. From the 1980s it was East Berlin's most important long-distance station.