The street got a name (originally in Italian "La strata Ribas") in honour to Hose de Ribas, because of the location of his house on this street, where his brother Felix de Ribas had lived later. It is located in parallel to the Lanzheronovskaya and Grecheskaya streets, between the Preobrazhenskaya and Polskaya streets.
The street had primary name "Gimnazskaya", sometimes we can meet the name "Gimnazicheskaya" (Gymnasium). It was named after the commercial gymnasium of Volsey, opened after the decree of the first governor Richeliu on April, 1804. From July, 1811 the street was named Deribasovskaya or de Ribasovskaya, from 1814 - simply Ribasovskaya, the name De-Ribasovskaya meets since 1836 - the street got that name after the governor of the city Joseph De-Ribas, that was dealing with the development of the construction plan of the city. In 1920 the street was renamed to Lassalle street. He was a publicist, activist of the German Working Movement, organizer of the Universal German Working Union. After the death of the pilot-tester Valery Chkalov, in 1938 the street had the name of Chkalov. From November, 1941 it is became the Deribasovskaya street again. 
Deribasovskaya street was decided to lay out with granite and to inundate with a volcanic lava from the famous Vesuvius. The street is small both in length and width, it does not have the way down to the sea, but never the less, despite the plans of the city-planning, Odessa citizens chose this street as the main: the exquisite restaurants, artistic workshops and hairdressing salons were always situated here.

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