The square emerged after taking away burnt remains of shopping arcades and Kuznetsovsky stalls in 1890–1891. At different times the square was called Kremlevskaya, Spasskaya, Bogorodskaya, Tikhvinskaya, Gostinodvorskaya. In 1935 the square was renamed in S. Kirov’s honour that was a prominent early Bolshevik leader in the Soviet Union and had been residing in Irkutsk illegally from 1908 to 1909.