Little Italy gets its name from the many Italian families that settled along College Street and its surrounding residential community in the early 1900s. These first Italian immigrants opened up many new Italian businesses along College Street and this is what first lent Little Italy its colourful charater.

In the 1960s, many of these original Italia families moved north to St. Clair Avenue to the neighbourhood that is now known as Corso Italia. In their place, many Portuguese, Spanish and Asian families started to move to this area. Today, Little Italy is a very multicultural neighbourhood of Toronto with both an Italian and international flavour.