The Soviet government founded the university on 5 February 1960. Its stated objective during the height of the Cold War was to help developing nations. On 22 February 1961, the university was named Patrice Lumumba University after the Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba, who had been killed in a coup that January. The stated purpose for establishing the university was to give young people from Asia, Africa and Latin America, especially from poor families, an opportunity to be educated and to become qualified specialists.

The university’s current Russian name is “Российский университет дружбы народов”, which could be translated as “Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia” or, more directly, as “Russian University of the Friendship of Nations”. Nonetheless, it remains most common in English to use the name “Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia” or the abbreviation “PFUR”.