Named after the rue Louis-Blanc, which honours Louis Blanc (1811–1882).
Louis Blanc was a socialist politician, journalist and historian, and a member of the provisional government of 1848. The street took his name by an order of 10 November 1885. Its oldest section was once the rue de la Boyauderie, after the gut-string makers who worked beside a refuse dump, and from 1821 the rue de la Butte-Chaumont.