Meanings of minor-planet names

This is a list of minor planets that have been named officially. They are named by the Working Group Small Body Nomenclature (WGSBN) of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The list is of pages that are not complete. Each page covers 1000 minor planets. All pages that exist are in § Index.

There are hundreds of thousands numbered minor planets. Very few are named, however. As of 28 February 2022^[update], there are 23,081 named minor planets. There are 600,000 numbered ones(also see List of minor planets § Main index as there are more very often).^[1] Most of the minor planets are named after people. Most of them were astronomers. Many of them are things from mythology or fiction. Many minor planets are also named after places. These can be things like cities, towns, villages, mountains, volcanoes, rivers, observatories, organizations, clubs and astronomical societies. Some are named after animals and plants. A few minor planets are named after other things such as supercomputers and some origins are unknown.

The first few thousand minor planets have all been named. The near-Earth asteroid (4596) 1981 QB is the lowest-numbered unnamed minor planet.^[2] The first 3 pages in the table contain 1,000 named entries each. The first 13 and 33 pages contain at least 500 and 100 named entries each. The first range to contain no entries is 258001–259000. There are also many name conflicts with other astronomical objects. The name conflicts are usually with with planetary satellites.

After the discovering astronomer discovers a planet, they can ask for that planet to be named a specific way. New minor planet names are approved and published by IAU's WGSBN many times every year.^[1] The WGSBN has a set of rules for naming minor planets.^[3] These are from syntax restrictions to non-offensive meanings. Over the years the rules have changed many times. In the beginning, for example, most minor planets were named after female characters from Greek and Roman mythology.^[3]