Named after the avenue Kléber, which honours General Jean-Baptiste Kléber (1753–1800).
Born in Strasbourg, Kléber trained as an architect, partly in Chalgrin's Paris workshop, before making his name as a general in the Vendée and the Egyptian campaign; he was assassinated in Cairo in 1800. The avenue's northern part opened in 1854 as avenue Kléber; an order of 16 August 1879 extended the name to the stretch called avenue du Roi-de-Rome since 1864.