The first asteroid was discovered by Piazzi on Sicily in 1801. He named the star Ferdinand Ceres. The former part is named after Ceres, the patron saint of Sicily, and the latter part is named after King Ferdinand IV of Naples. But international scholars were not satisfied with this, so the second part was removed. Therefore the official name of the first asteroid is Asteroid 1 Ceres.
According to this tradition, the asteroids discovered thereafter were named after Roman or Greek gods, such as Pallas, Vesta, Justice, etc. But as more and more asteroids were discovered, eventually the names of the classical gods were exhausted. Therefore, later asteroids were named after the discoverer's wife, historical or other important figures, cities, fairy tale characters or other mythological gods.
For example, asteroid 216 is named after the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra, asteroid 719 Albert is named after Albert Einstein, and asteroid 17744 is named after the actress Julie Named after Dee Foster, asteroid 1773 was named after a dwarf from a Grimm fairy tale, and so on.
As of March 6, 2007, there are ***679,373 asteroids with calculated orbits (i.e., provisional numbers) (query), and ***150,106 asteroids with permanent numbers (query) ), there are 12,712 named asteroids.
List of people named asteroids:
The first asteroid discovered on Chinese soil: 139 Juewa (discoverer J.C. Watson)
The first asteroid discovered by the Chinese: 1125/3789 China (discovered by Zhang Yuzhe, later changed 1125 to 3789)
The first asteroid named after a Chinese : 1802 Zhang Heng (discovered by Purple Mountain Observatory)
The first asteroid named after a Chinese place: 2045 Peking (discovered by Purple Mountain Observatory)
The first asteroid named after a Chinese county: 3611 Dabu (discovered by Purple Mountain Observatory)
The first asteroid named after a Taiwanese: 2240 Tsai (Cai Zhangxian) (Discovered by Harvard Observatory)
The first asteroid named after a Chinese spacecraft: 8256 Shenzhou (Discovered by Purple Mountain Observatory)
The above content Reference?Baidu Encyclopedia - Naming Asteroids