When an asteroid is discovered and its orbit is determined, it is given a provisional identification number. Sometime later, the celestial body may be issued a formal name to be listed by the International Astronomical Union. Recently, NASA held a contest inviting students under the age of 18 to name the asteroid number: 101955 199 RQ36.

Rules:

• The name could not be longer than 16 characters.
• It must be pronounceable in more than one language.
• It could not be considered offensive.

By the time the contest deadline arrived, officials had received more than 8,000 suggestions from school children from around the world.

After reviewing this proposals, judges finally selected the name Bennu which was sent in by 9 year old Michael Puzio from North Carolina. According to officials, what made this name the winner was meaningful history. A mythological name for a large heron, the symbol of Osiris, the name Bennu means “the Ascending One” which brilliantly reflects the fact that in 2023, the asteroid will rise and shine across Earth’s night sky.

In September 2016, NASA will launch a spacecraft to take samples from Bennu. The name of this special mission is OSIRIS-Rex, an acronym for the “Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer.”

The Vietnamese Australian Phuc Dat Bich posted his passport to Facebook to prove that his name is authentic. This is yet another example of how ethnic diversity can complicate Facebook’s real name policy.

On the 5th of February 2015, a congressional committee was assigned to consider H.R. 760, a bill to rename the “Bureau of Prisons” to the “Bureau of Corrections”. Jason Chaffetz, a Republican representative for Utah’s 3rd congressional district, introduced the bill to help change the US society’s mindset toward incarceration. As Chaffetz explained in an interview with The Hill, the name change would also reflect the fact that 48 states in the Union currently use the name “corrections” instead of “prisons”. According to some prognoses, the bill only has a 1% chance of being enacted.

This November, the makers of the Monopoly board game unveiled the official Melbourne edition. From Great Ocean Road and the National Gallery of Victoria to Queen Vic Market and the University of Melbourne, this special edition has replaced many of the original iconic place names with well-known toponymic tourist attractions.

While many Melburnians are lamenting the loss of the toponyms they grew up with, others are complaining that the board game’s choice of place names reinforces many outsiders’ stereotypes. However, Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Robert Doyle, is not worried at all by the fuss. As he revealed in an interview featured on news.com.au, he hopes that families will have “amicable fights about what should be on the board and what is” while they have “a wonderful time playing their local game […] This is our game, a part of our community and the landmarks that make up our story.”

After conducting extensive market research and spending more than $300,000 in private funding, the proposal was made to change the former name of The Seattle Public Library to the new and improved name: Seattle Public Libraries. The suggested change involved changing the word-final “y” to “ies”…oh and the “The” was to be dropped as well. In light of the fact that implementing this re-branding would cost several hundred thousand more, many Seattleites reacted less than enthusiastically to the proposed name change. After much deliberation, the Library’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously against the proposed re-branding.