The discoverers usually had the honor of choosing a name for their discoveries, at first called minor planets and later referred to as asteroids. At first they selected names from among female mythological deities, but when they ran out of deities, names were chosen from among colleagues, friends, family, historical personalities, athletes, artisans, and even cities, nations, lakes and rivers, as well as ideas and philosophies. The numbers in parentheses represent an approximation to their sequence in discovery. Finally, there is an asteroid named for a former observatory director in Nice, France. This word may be offensive to some, crude to others, but employed here in the interest of promoting a holistic view of events, where astronomers and astrologers can find common ground, where what's up there in the sky has much to correlate with what's happening down here on Earth.
Parental discretion is advised.
But after what children have access to on the internet thanks to the release of grand jury testimony, maybe adolescent discretion is advised. A similar colloquial reference was made in the John Bobbitt castration story, and the asteroid name corresponding to the male genitalia figured equally prominently in that story. An asteroid bears his family name. Prior to the publicity surrounding President Clinton's genitals, the most famous attention given to this member was in the castration of John Bobbitt by his wife Lorraine. The asteroid Lorraine that night joined beautiful Venus, the planet of values and honor.