I’ve seen them myself – the long lists of planetary names proposed by excited Americans in March 1930:
Splendor! Pax! Ariel! Salacia! Athenia! Nuevo! Utopia! Maximum! Tantalus! Perseus!
And – yes: Pluto.
In fact, Vesto Slipher and the Lowell Observatory staff liked “Minerva” for the new planet, but a prominent asteroid with that label already existed. Next on their own list of preferences? Pluto. As it happened, Pluto was also the second most popular name with the public, going by a tally of those dozens of folks who had been sending eager telegrams since the moment the discovery was announced.
So how did Venetia Burney somehow get credit for Pluto? It’s a cute story, sure. The little girl named a planet! And she was quick off the mark, no doubt about it – having read the news on the morning of March 14, she (being young, British, and keen) struck upon “Pluto” and mentioned it to her grandfather across the breakfast table. Her grandfather was a gent with a spectacular moniker of his own – Falconer Madan (!) — and just happened to be a retired librarian from the Bodleian Library. Old Man Madan mentioned his granddaughter’s proposal to his chum Herbert Hall Turner, professor of astronomy at Oxford — and Turner eventually sent a telegram to Flagstaff suggesting it.
More than a month went by before the planet was officially named. Vesto Slipher (speaking of spectacular monikers) and his staff consulted with one another about what to call the new planet. And — well, who better to give credit to than to a girl whose great uncle Henry Madan had named the moons of Mars – Phobos and Deimos?
But the credit could have gone to any number of people. Safe to say, the staff at Lowell knew they had a good story on their hands, and didn’t mind doing a little gilding of the lily in the person of Venetia Burney.
I mean, she’s called Venetia – it’s just too good to be true. (And it almost certainly is.)
Ms. Burney – later Venetia Phair – died April 30, 2009. Of Pluto’s demotion from planetary status, she said, “At my age, I’ve been largely indifferent to [the debate]; though I suppose I would prefer it to remain a planet.”
The asteroid 6235 Burney bears her handle, as does an instrument on the New Horizons spacecraft, destined to arrive in Pluto’s orbit in 2015.
March 16, 2010 at 5:45 pm
First, regarding names, the spacecraft headed for Pluto is called New Horizons, not Lost Horizons!
It is true that the suggestion of the name Pluto came concurrently from several sources. Venetia was one of them but not the only one. Her suggestion probably strengthened the position of those at the Lowell Observatory who already favored the name.
March 16, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Thanks, Laurel! I’ve changed the name of the spacecraft in the original post.
In the archives of Lowell Observatory, the secretaries of the era took down suggested names on small 3×4 slips of paper — buried somewhere in the boxes is the tidy little sheaf of papers on which all the tallies — and all the names — are preserved.
Coming soon: some of the letters themselves!
March 17, 2010 at 9:01 am
[…] to Lowell in the days immediately following the announcement of Planet X’s discovery. While Venetia Burney gets a lot of credit for coming up with the name Pluto, she was by no means the only one to think […]
July 10, 2015 at 3:03 pm
[…] I mean, it’s true that she suggested it, but so did about a billion other people. Why does Venetia get the credit? Well, I have a theory. […]