Named after Südtiroler Platz, which recalls South Tyrol, and the main railway station.
The square was named on 21 December 1927 after the part of Tyrol south of the Brenner that belonged to Austria de facto until 1918 and legally until 1920; from 1898 it had been Favoritenplatz. In December 2012 the U-Bahn station only added ‘Hauptbahnhof’ to its name, because South Tyrol’s representatives asked Vienna to keep the historic name.