Named after Emil Hermann Rothenbach, a local landowner.
Emil Hermann Rothenbach (1862–1922) came from a family settled here for generations, which ran windmills nearby. He gave land so that a proper street could replace the old field track to Pankow, once called Pankower Weg or Alter Mühlenweg (old mill way). The name first appears in the address book of 1898.