Meanings of minor-planet names
Wikimedia list article
This is a list of minor planets which have been officially named by the Working Group for Small Bodies Nomenclature (WGSBN) of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The list consists of partial pages, each covering a number range of 1,000 bodies citing the source after each minor planet was named for. An overview of all existing partial pages is given in section § Index.
Among the hundreds of thousands of numbered minor planets only a small fraction have received a name so far. As of 25 May 2026, there are 26,067 named minor planets out of a total of more than 880,000 numbered ones (also see List of minor planets § Main index as numbers increase constantly). Most of these bodies are named for people, in particular astronomers, as well as figures from mythology and fiction. Many minor planets are also named after places such cities, towns, and villages, mountains and volcanoes; after rivers, observatories, as well as organizations, clubs and astronomical societies. Some are named after animals and plants. A few minor planets are named after exotic entities such as supercomputers or have an unknown origin.
The first few thousand minor planets have all been named, with the near-Earth asteroid (4596) 1981 QB currently being the lowest-numbered unnamed minor planet.
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This entry incorporates text from “Meanings of minor-planet names” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.