Its subtitle is derived from the U.S. Navy Memorial and the Penn Quarter neighborhood in which the station is located.

Its opening coincided with the completion of 3.3 miles (5.3 km) of rail south of Gallery Place to L'Enfant Plaza and across a bridge over the Potomac River to the Pentagon station.

In 1989, the WMATA Board of Directors voted to rename the station to Archives–Navy Mem'l to recognize the nearby U.S. Navy Memorial.

"Navy Mem'l" and "Penn Quarter" were moved to a new subtitle, leaving "Archives" as the main name, on November 3, 2011, to go into effect on June 18, 2012 upon the publication of an updated system map.

The station has an island platform accessed from the corner of Indiana Avenue and Seventh Street, NW.