Named after the town of Villejuif and the politician Léo Lagrange (1900–1940).
Lagrange, a socialist lawyer, became the Popular Front’s under-secretary of state for sport and the organisation of leisure in 1936, and was killed in action in June 1940. Villejuif first appears in a papal bull of 1119 as Villa Judea, a Latin form of Old French words meaning ‘Jewish village’, still the most plausible reading. During planning the station was called Villejuif 1.