Named after Josefstädter Straße, the main street of the Josefstadt district.
The street was named in 1862 to preserve the name of the Josefstadt suburb; from 1778 it had been Kaiserstraße. In 1700 the City of Vienna bought the new suburb and named it Josephstadt in honour of Crown Prince Joseph, emperor from 1705 as Joseph I. The spelling Josefstadt became usual in the second half of the 19th century.