Asteroids first gave the names of the heroes of the Roman and Greek mythology, and then discoverer have the right to call it whatever you like, though his name. At first, the name was given only to women. Only asteroids with unusual orbit, got men (for example, Icarus, coming closer to the Sun, mercury). After, and it has ceased to be respected.

Get the names may not all the asteroids, but only those that have more or less reliably calculated orbit. There were cases, when the asteroid was named after dozens of years after opening. Up until the orbit is not designed, the asteroid is attributed sequence number that indicates the date of its opening, for example, 1950 DA. Digits indicate the year.

The first letter is the number of the Crescent of the year, which was opened by the asteroid, all of them, therefore, 24. In the example, this is the second part of February. The second letter indicates the sequence number of the asteroid in the specified Crescent, in our example, the asteroid was opened first. The designation does not use the letters I and Z, as Crescent-24, and letters - 26. The letter I is not used because of the similarity with the unit. If the number of asteroids, open during the Crescent will exceed 24, return to the beginning of the alphabet, attributing the second letter of index 2, when you next return - 3, etc. Asteroids are sometimes opened hundreds a year. Information about bright asteroids and about the conditions of their observations can be found in astronomical.