Named after the Gare de l'Est, the railway station for eastern France.
Opened in 1849 as the embarcadère de Strasbourg, it was renamed in 1854, when its company, now the Compagnie des chemins de fer de l'Est, added the Mulhouse line. It is not in the east of Paris: the Strasbourg line skirts the hills of Belleville to the north. The metro station's full name is Gare de l'Est – Verdun, after the nearby avenue de Verdun.