Talk:List of minor planets named after people

Rename proposal
I propose name change from "List of asteroids named after important people" to List of asteroids named after people. Firstly because Lists says not to use words like 'famous', 'notable', 'important', in titles, and secondly to be consistent with the eponymous lists as listed in eponym. Jay 22:33, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, there are a few thousand asteroids named after people, so if you include everybody, you end up reproducing a lot of what's listed in List of asteroids. Although that list doesn't have a "named after" column with links to articles about people. In any case, I don't object. -- Curps 22:39, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * The concern is valid. However lists with lots of red links are discouraged and contents of a list are supposed to have a wikipedia article on it/him. So after all you do end having an implicit list of 'important' people in a list concerning people. You're right about the partial duplication too. A relational list (A:B) is neither a subset, superset or duplicate of a stand-alone list (A), as it is simply meant to relate two kinds of data together. So until Wikipedia software comes up with some way to relate different data together and create lists dynamically, we got to create them manually. "Categories" is a good start but I don't know yet how to use them. Jay 23:26, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * Name change done. Jay 15:23, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If someone wants to know my sources for meanings of asteroid names, it's Zemlya i Vselennaya (Earth and Universe), journal by USSR/Russian Academy of sciences,1965–, ISSN 0044-3948. Unfortunately, I am not able to get the official source:Minor Planet Circular. Cmapm 07:54, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

more names
here are lots of additional asteroid names. claims to be based on « Dictionary of Minor Planet Names » (ed. 1997, Lutz D. Schmadel)--  ExpImp talk con 18:57, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Who decides who is important enough to be included in this list?? 129.2.14.148 (talk) 16:22, 23 July 2010 (UTC)Elizabeth

There are increasing numbers of amateur astronomers with asteroids to their names (I know several), so the list presented here is rather selective. Robin Scagell (talk) 15:13, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Relatives and children
I started editing this page because I've been going through the biogs on Wikipedia and ensuring that there's a reference to his/her asteroid for everyone who's been honoured with a minor planet.

When that's the case, I've also checked that there's an entry on this page - as discussed above, anyone who's "important" enough to have a biog is "important" enough to appear here.

But what should we do about "Children of astronomers" and "Discoverers' relatives"?

I've already broadened the first to "Relatives of astronomers" - hope that's OK. It seems inconsistent to list astronomers' children, but not their wives or siblings where they too have been honoured.

Since "discoverers" are, de facto, astronomers, maybe these two categories should be combined? Or - since most of these relatives are not "important" in their own right - should these categories be deleted?

Gallina3795 (talk) 12:22, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

"Other sciences" subhead
I have changed this to: "Other scientists, engineers and inventors", because: Gallina3795 (talk) 16:03, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Grammatically, it was out-of-style with the other subheadings, which described the particular occupation (astronomer, chemist, etc) rather than the subject area (astronomy, chemistry, etc)
 * There were already some engineers and inventors in this section. It also seemed the natural place to add Edison and the Lumiere brothers, so I think the heading needs to be generalised in this way.

Ida Barney
Barney1159 T-2 (#5655 Barney) Named for Astronomer Ida Barney. Should be listed. I can't find it here in the list of objects named for astronomers. 7&amp;6=thirteen (☎) 02:20, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Add Science Fiction Category?
Should there be a "Science Fiction" subsection under the "Novelists" section? There are a fair number of Sci-Fi authors with asteroids named after them.