'Duerf' is Luxembourgish for village.
The name points to the old village of Cessange (Zéisseng). It is first named in a document of 1083, in which Count Conrad I of Luxembourg gave Altmünster Abbey a country house with stables and a barn there. In 1681, when the French under Louis XIV tried to take the fortress of Luxembourg, the village was most probably left without inhabitants.