A Gallo-Roman village stood here along the Roman road that led north from Lutetia. About 1198 the district was named the Villa Nova Sancti Lazari, in French Ville Neuf Saint-Ladre, the "new village of Saint-Ladre", which referred to the leper hospice dedicated to the lepers' patron Saint Lazare (Ladre); it became Villette-Saint-Ladre-lez-Paris in a document of 1426.
In 1790, the Constituent Assembly of Revolutionary France raised the hamlet to the status of a commune.
Notes
^The others were Belleville, Grenelle and Vaugirard.