"What are my own particular favorites among the
         names of minor planets? Certainly I like the
         ones where there is some particular `connection'
         between planet and name."

         Brian G. Marsden (writing in 1999)
         Director, IAU Minor Planet Center 
         In Lutz D. Schmadel,
         _Dictionary of Minor Planet Names_, 
         (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001)
         p. viii


         From an edition of the _Oxford English Dictionary_

         planet
         [...]
         2.a. _Mod. Astron_. The name given to each of the
         heavenly bodies that revolve in approximately
         circular orbits round the sun (_primary planets_),
         and to those that revolve around these (_secondary
         planets_ or SATELLITES).
       
         The primary planets comprise the _major planets_,
         of which nine are known, viz., in order of distance
         from the sun, Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, 
         Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, and the
         _minor planets_ or ASTEROIDS, the orbits of most of
         which lie between Mars and Jupiter.
         [...]
         1878 HUXLEY _Physiogr._ xxi. 371. Astronomers are
         acquainted with 182 bodies called planets.