Named after the rue d'Avron, which leads towards the plateau d'Avron east of Paris.
The plateau, a hill in Seine-Saint-Denis about ten kilometres away, was of strategic importance for the defence of Paris during the Prussian siege of 1870–1871. The street, part of the old road from Paris to Montreuil, was called the Grande rue de Montreuil until an order of 1 February 1877 renamed it.