Pioneer program
This minor planet was named in honor of Dutch-born American astronomer Tom Gehrels (1925–2011), professor at the University of Arizona, staff member of the LPL research center at Tucson, a principal investigator in the Pioneer program, receiver of the Masursky Award, initiator of the Spacewatch project, and co-discoverer of thousands of minor planets in the Palomar–Leiden survey "(see above)". He was a pioneer in the field of photometric and polarimetric observations of Solar System bodies in the 1950s. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on 25 September 1971 ().