The name recalls the leper house that stood here.
From the early 13th century, the town's leper house stood here by the Alzette, outside the fortress; it had first been in Bonnevoie. Until the 16th century, people suspected of leprosy were taken to specialists in Trier, Liège or Cologne for diagnosis. The leper house chapel survives in the Sichenhaff cemetery and is used today as its mortuary.