Hahnenbach lies northwest of Kirn right at the boundary with the neighbouring Birkenfeld district.

Clockwise from the north, Hahnenbach's neighbours are the municipalities of Hennweiler and Oberhausen bei Kirn and the town of Kirn, all of which likewise lie within the Bad Kreuznach district, while the municipalities of Bergen, Griebelschied and Sonnschied all lie in the neighbouring Birkenfeld district.

Like the neighbouring village of Hennweiler (formerly known as Hanenwilare), the name Hahnenbach (formerly known as Hanenbach) may go back to a common forename that cropped up in a Frankish noble clan, the Haganons.

They were, beginning in the 7th century, enfeoffed and resident as members of a so-called Imperial nobility in the Rhenish Hesse area.

This clan's descendants are believed to have made land arable and founded settlements in the 7th and 8th centuries when the woodlands between the Moselle and the Nahe were opened up.

This lordship persisted until French Revolutionary troops overran and occupied the German lands on the Rhine’s left bank in the late 18th century.

Hahnenbach remained a municipality within this body, which through several rounds of administrative restructuring (1817, 1858, 1894, 1927, 1940, 1969-1970) has become today's Verbandsgemeinde of Kirn-Land.

The charge on the dexter (armsbearer's right, viewer's left) side, the lion, is a reference to the village's former allegiance to the Lordship of Wartenstein, a fief granted by the Electorate of Trier to the Lords of Warsberg.

After consent by the state archive, the Ministry of the Interior in Mainz granted approval for Hahnenbach to bear its own arms on 12 May 1965.