Named after Pankstraße, which takes its name from the river Panke.
The street’s course already appears on a map of 1722, as part of the road to Oranienburg, which crossed the Panke at the Vorwerk (farm) Wedding. It was named after the river in 1827, when the Wedding was divided into plots. The Panke rises in Bernau and flows into the Spree in Berlin. A curiosity: the station walls read ‘Pankstrasse’ instead of ‘Pankstraße’.