Naming guidelinesNaming guidelines

A name travels with a registry entry for as long as the registry exists. These guidelines set out what an Asteria name may be, how our curators choose one, and how every name and dedication is reviewed before it is recorded.

Length

3–32 characters

Spaces count; measured after normalisation

Script

Latin letters

Common diacritics are welcome

Review

Automated + human

Every name, before it is recorded

Status

Draft v1

May be refined before launch

Who these rules apply to#

• Curated names. Today every entry in the catalogue carries a name chosen by Asteria's curators. They are held to exactly the same rules as everyone else.
• Dedications. A short personal inscription on the certificate is planned for the marketplace launch (see Dedication text below).
• Holder proposals. If custom naming opens in a later phase, proposals will follow these guidelines. Custom naming is not confirmed.

Format rules#

Length#

A registry name is 3 to 32 characters long, spaces included, and has at most four words. Short is usually better: a name should fit on one line of a certificate and be easy to say out loud.

Allowed characters#

Names must start and end with a letter. Digits are excluded on purpose: numbers and letter–number strings are how official designations look, and we never want a registry name to be mistaken for one.

Normalisation and uniqueness#

Names are stored as Unicode NFC text in title case (curators may adjust casing, as in Helion Drift). For uniqueness checks we compare a simplified key: lower case, diacritics removed, spaces, hyphens and apostrophes ignored. Vesperine, VESPERINE and Vespérine are therefore the same name, and only one of them can exist in the registry.

Content rules#

1. Nothing offensive or hateful. No slurs, harassment, sexual content, glorification of violence or discrimination, in any language. Deliberate misspellings and sound-alike tricks count as the real thing.
2. No living people without consent. A name honouring a living person needs that person's written consent. People who have died are considered case by case.
3. No political, military or religious figures. Nor parties, movements, conflicts or slogans. The IAU's own guidelines are cautious here; ours simply exclude them.
4. No trademarks, brands or commercial messages. No company or product names, no slogans, nothing that advertises.
5. Not confusingly similar to an existing registry name. Exact matches after normalisation are rejected automatically. Near matches (one or two letters apart, or names that sound the same) go to a curator.
6. No imitation of official names or claims of official status. No name identical to a published official minor-planet name, no designation-like strings, and no words such as Official, IAU, MPC or Certified.
7. No personal data. No addresses, phone numbers, email addresses or ID numbers — in names or in dedications.

How curated names are chosen#

Every curated name starts from the object itself. A curator reads the record — spectral class, albedo, orbit, size, rotation — and looks for the detail that makes this asteroid unlike its neighbours. Three tests decide the shortlist.

Meaning#

The name should point to something true. Nyxara, after Nyx, the primordial night, belongs to one of the darkest surfaces in the collection. Helion Drift, from helios, belongs to an orbit that dives inside Earth's. The meaning is recorded with the name in the name_meaning field of the token metadata.

Euphony#

Read it aloud. A good name is easy to say in more than one language, has no awkward clusters of consonants, and does not mean something unfortunate elsewhere. Curators check candidate names against several languages before they are approved.

Story#

The name should open a door to the asteroid's story: the evening light of Vesperine, the patient fifteen-hour day of Sable Lantern. Names drawn from myth and language are welcome; names that need a paragraph of explanation usually are not.

Dedication text#

A dedication is an optional inscription shown on the certificate beneath the registry name. It is planned for the marketplace launch.

• Up to 240 characters, plain text, no formatting.
• The same content rules as names apply, including the ban on personal data, URLs and promotion.
• You may mention people you know. If you use a full name, make sure that person is happy to see it on a public record.
• Every dedication is reviewed before it appears on a certificate.

Review and moderation#

Appeals#

If a name or dedication is declined, you can appeal once, within 30 days, by replying with context — for example, what a word means in your language. A different curator reviews the appeal. Their decision on that text is final, but you are always free to submit a different one.

After a name is recorded#

Names are meant to be permanent, which is why review happens before anything is recorded or minted. If a serious problem surfaces later — say, a word acquires a hateful meaning — Asteria may stop displaying it on its own website and will document that decision publicly. We will not quietly rewrite the registry.

Examples#

All examples below are fictional.

Next steps#