As minor planet discoveries are confirmed, they are given a permanent number by the IAU's Minor Planet Center (MPC), and the discoverers can then submit names for them, following the IAU's naming conventions. The list below concerns those minor planets in the specified number-range that have received names, and explains the meanings of those names.
Based on Paul Herget's The Names of the Minor Planets,[6] Schmadel also researched the unclear origin of numerous asteroids, most of which had been named prior to World War II. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: SBDB New namings may only be added to this list below after official publication as the preannouncement of names is condemned.[7] The WGSBN publishes a comprehensive guideline for the naming rules of non-cometary small Solar System bodies.[8]
Fern C. Hildebrandt (born 1927) instilled and cultivated an interest in astronomy in codiscoverer Gary Hug at a very early age. Resident now in Topeka, Kansas, she has been an example of dedication and triumph through difficult times and has inspired this codiscoverer to search the night sky.
Californian songwriter and record producer Brian Wilson (born 1942) contributed to 1960s pop culture, with songs like Fun Fun Fun, exemplifying the pastimes of modern teenage life, through the Beach Boys' pop group harmonies, giving out very good vibrations indeed.
Hajime Koshiishi (born 1930) became interested in investigating minor planets as a natural resource. He organized a society for the study of NEAs and their resource utilization and made efforts toward the establishment of the Japan Spaceguard Association
The nuclear physicist Edoardo Amaldi (1908–1989) was part of the team of Enrico Fermi and contributed to the completion of the first particle accelerator in Italy.
Norbert Wiener (1894–1964) contributed to many areas of mathematics, including cybernetics, stochastic processes and quantum theory. He was the author of the book Cybernetics, or control and communication in the animal and machine (1948).
Princeton theoretical cosmologist Jim Peebles (born 1935) and 2019 Physics Nobel Prize, plays a central role in the understanding of the evolution and structure of the universe. His studies of the evolution of matter in the earliest moments of the universe were critical in the establishment of the Big Bang theory as a widely accepted hypothesis.
Vladimir Petrovich Platonov (born 1938), well-known journalist and documentary-film director, is the author of many books, articles and films about the creators of space-rocket technologies and the many challenges in that field
Sebastian Kneipp (1821–1897), a German priest, skilled in the art of healing, introduced manifold applications of cold and warm water and suggested that a healthy way of living conformed to nature. His papers were translated into many languages and were an essential influence on modern physical therapeutics and balneology.
Boris Ieremievich Verkin (1919–1990), a Ukrainian Soviet physicist and creator of the scientific school of cryogenic physics and technology, was the founder and first director of the Institute for Low Temperature Physics and Engineering in Kharkiv
Sumiyoshi, in the south of Osaka prefecture, is an important port for trade between Japan and the Korean Peninsula. The Sumiyoshi Taisha shrine, a guardian of voyage, was founded in 211. At the shrine there is a lighthouse, believed to be the oldest in Japan.
Wani was a scholar who came to Japan from Korea in the second half of the 4th century. He brought ten volumes of The Analects of Confucius and one volume of the Thousand Character Classic to Japan.
Frank B. Zoltowski (born 1957), an Australian discoverer of minor planets who made numerous critical observations of near-earth objects, notably a dramatic recovery of 1999 AN10, while he was working in South Australia during 1997–1999. He continued to make astrometric contributions on his return to the U.S.
Anatolij Afanas'evich Rudenko (born 1949) is a full member of the Tsiolkovsky Russian Academy of Cosmonautics and an authority on systems analysis and high technology. He was a member of the team that created aerospace systems and developed powerful liquid-propellant engines
Fyodor Fyodorovich Konyukhov (born 1951) has performed 50 extensive travels, mainly alone. He conquered both poles and all the highest mountains of the world. The renowned Russian traveler has taken many of the world's most difficult land and sea routes and has sailed around the world three times.
Nikolaj Nikolaevich Drozdov (born 1937), a Russian professor of biology and the author and chief producer of very popular TV program V mire zhivotnykh (In the World of Animals).
San Cassiano, an Italian village in the hills near Verona in northern Italy, is renowned for its high-quality oil (Grignano) and wine (Amarone). Its isolated location affords views of both the Alps and the Adriatic Sea.
Asja Geyer-Fischer (born 1934) is a splendid pianist with a great love for Mozart and Chopin. She is an especially good teacher for children. In 1962 she followed her husband, astronomer E. H. Geyer to the Boyden Observatory, South Africa, where he had been appointed Director of the observatory for two years.
Jakob Staude (born 1944) is staff astronomer at the Heidelberg Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and a well-known expert on star formation. Since 1981 Staude has also served as editor-in-chief of the German journal Sterne und Weltraum.
John Francis Vetter (born 1945), an Australian amateur astronomer and retired automotive mechanic, who established the Mudgee Observatory in 2005 (Src).
Jules Massenet (1842–1912) was a prolific French composer of operas. His greatest successes were Manon (1884), Werther (1892) and Thaïs (1894). The Méditation, a violin solo with orchestra from Thaïs, became world-famous. In 1878 he was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts
The Tentoumushi astronomy club was named after the seven-starred ladybug. The club received an award from the city of Komatsu for its astronomy popularization.
Atsuhiro Ikuta (1999–2011) and Taisei Ikuta (2003–2011) were two brothers who loved the stars. They died in an automobile accident on the night of 2011 December 10, on their return home from viewing a total lunar eclipse
Stazzema, a pleasant village located in the Alpi Apuane mountains of Tuscany, Italy. Since 2000, it has been the site of the Italian Park of Peace. Name proposed by Mario Di Martino
Vinci is a small beautiful village in Tuscany, where the great genius Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452. For this reason it is visited by thousands of people each year, eager to visit either the museum or see Leonardo's machines.
Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.) promulgated in 46 B.C. on the advice of the Alexandrine astronomer Sosigenes what is now called the Julian calendar.
Seiichi Kanno (born 1954) is an education consultant and an amateur astronomer, who has observed the planets since 1970. He built an observatory in Kaminoyama city, Yamagata, in 1989, and now observes the planets with a video camera
Hakodate, located at the southernmost part of Hokkaido, is a prosperous city of fishing and tourism. The night view from Mount Hakodate is one of the best tourist attractions in Japan
Jun Kikuchi (born 1967) purchased his first telescope during the height of Halley's Comet fever in 1986. Though cloudy skies thwarted his attempts at comet photography, his interest in solar eclipse photography led him to France in 1999, and to China in 2008 and 2009
Mark R. Showalter (born 1957), planetary scientist at the SETI Institute, is (co-)discover of the Jovian gossamer ring, Saturnian moon Pan, Uranian moons Mab and Cupid, two faint Uranian rings, Neptunian moon S/2004 N 1, and Plutonian moons Kerberos and Styx. He is the leader of the Planetary Data Systems Rings Node
Salvador Edward Luria (1912–1991) was an Italian-American microbiologist. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1969 for his discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses. He also showed that bacterial resistance to viruses is genetically inherited.
Wolfratshausen, a city in southern Bavaria, Germany, has a long history extending back to the original name found in court papers by Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich II in 1003. Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) stayed in the city with Lou Andreas-Salome (1861–1937) in 1897
Daniel Bovet (1907–1992) was a Swiss-born Italian pharmacologist known for his discovery of antihistamines. In 1957 he won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discoveries relating to synthetic compounds that inhibit the action of certain body substances and especially their action on the vascular system and the skeletal muscles.
Richard Courant (1888–1972) studied and later taught at Göttingen. In 1934 he became a professor at New York University, where he founded and led one of the most prestigious institutes of applied mathematics, later named in his honor.
Ellen Key (1849–1926) was a Swedish feminist and writer on subjects such as family life, ethics and education. She was on early advocate of child-centered approach to education.
William Thuillot (born 1951) works at the Institut de Mécanique Céleste on the theory of the motions of Jupiter's Galilean satellites, including analysis of observations of eclipses by the planet and mutual phenomena.
Patrick Rocher (born 1951) works at the Institut de Mécanique Céleste in Paris. His main task has been to build an integration package to compute orbital parameters for minor planets and comets.
Jean-Louis Simon (born 1940) works at the Paris Institut de Mécanique Céleste on analytical planetary theory. He produced the first values of the secular variation of the orbital semimajor axes of the planets.
Valerie Batllo (born 1967) works on cometary orbits at the Institut de Mécanique Céleste in Paris. She studies in particular how the short-period comets could be produced by encounters with the giant planets.
Francesco Pedani (1953–1998) was an amateur astronomer, biologist and school teacher of science and mathematics. In 1988 he founded the Societ Astronomica Fiorentina, an association of amateur astronomers based in Florence, Italy. He was its first president until his untimely death.
Jacques Laskar (born 1955) is principally concerned with the chaotic behavior of the principal planets. A staff member of the Institut de Mécanique Céleste in Paris, he was the first to show the chaotic motion of the inner solar system and the stabilization of the obliquity of the ecliptic by the moon.
French poet Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) was one of the major innovators of French literature. His Les Fleurs du Mal (1857) is considered to rank with the finest of French poetry. Baudelaire is particularly known for his excellent translations of Poe's Tales, a writer whose style much resembled his own
Roger-Maurice Bonnet (born 1937) is a French experimental astrophysicist specializing in stellar physics. From 1983 to 2001 he was Science Director of ESA and he created Horizon 2000. Under his lead, ESA launched the scientific projects, Giotto, Hipparcos, ISO, XMM, SOHO, Cluster, Cassini-Huygens and HST.
Tania Sagrati (1967–2012) was the cousin of the second discoverer. She graduated from the Art Institute of Firenze and worked as an interior decorator.
Mauro Gherardini (1941–2008), a surveyor by profession, was a great lover of the sky. He was a popularizer of astronomy, promoting astro-navigation at evening school events.
Nicolas-Antoine Nouet (1740–1811), an astronomer at the Observatoire de Paris, traveled to St. Domingue to map the island. Later he mapped the Rhine region and traveled with Napoleon Bonaparte to Egypt, where he created a map of that country.
Aoyunzhiyuanzhe, meaning "Olympic Games Volunteer", honors the 1.7 million volunteers whose work, devotion, smiles and service during the 2008 Olympic and Paralympic Games touched the whole world, setting a milestone in voluntary service and opening a fresh chapter in volunteerism in China
Arashiyama, situated west of Kyoto city, is the area that includes Arashiyama mountain and the shores of the Katsuragawa river, including the Togetsukyo bridge. It is known nationally for its cherry blossoms and colorful autumn leaves and is designated as a National Historic Site and Place of Scenic Beauty.
Vilʹ S. Bakirov (born 1946) is a Ukrainian sociologist, president of the Sociological Association and corresponding member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Since 1998 he has served as rector of Kharkiv V. N. Karazin National University, where he has promoted the development of astronomy and other sciences
Brett Whiteley (1939–1992) an Abstract artist and Australia's leading painter of his generation who won all of the major Australian art prizes many times over
a "sooner", a person who is settling on land in the early American west before the land was officially open to settlement. The name particularly honors the U.S. state of Oklahoma and the University of Oklahoma, alma mater of the discoverer.
Steven L. Dodds (born 1961) has been furnishing telescope optics for the astronomical community since 1986. He constructed two parabolic off-axis segments (adaptive optic components) used in the Gemini North 8.1-meter telescope located on Mauna Kea.
Domegge di Cadore, a small town nestled in the Northeastern Italian Alps, surrounded by the rose-colored Dolomites, Domegge di Cadore's very dark and clear skies are an inspiration to any astronomer.
Robin Hood, the legendary thirteenth-century English archer and outlaw of Sherwood Forest who, with his band of Merry Men, robbed rich unscrupulous officials to aid and protect the poor in what might be described as a medieval form of socialism
Kiyoshi Atsumi (1928–1996), Japanese actor known for his roles in the film It's tough being a man and in the "Tora-san" series, of which there were 48 installments during 1969–1995. The Tora-san series became a huge success in Japan and received a National Honor Award in 1996
