Named after Pankow and Heinersdorf, the two localities that meet here.
The halt lies in the east of Pankow; beyond the former marshalling yard next to it begins Heinersdorf, a village founded around 1230 and first recorded in 1319 as ‘Hinrickestorppe’, when Margrave Woldemar sold it to Berlin’s Heilig-Geist-Hospital. The station opened in 1893 and in 1924 was among the first in Berlin served by electric trains.