Boletim ⋆ da ⋆ Boletim da Sociedade Astronˆomica Brasileira, 29, no.1, 26-53 SAB c SAB 2010 ⋆ ⋆ Naming the extrasolar planets W. Lyra American Museum of Natural History, 79th Street at Central Park West, New York, NY, 10024, USA e-mail:
[email protected] Received January 14th 2010; accepted August 25th 2010 Resumo. Planetas extrassolares n˜ao s˜ao nomeados e s˜ao referenciados apenas pela sua designa¸c˜ao cient´ıfica. A raz˜ao apresentada pela UAI para n˜ao os nomear ´eque isso seria impratic´avel dado que os planetas devem ser comuns. Apresento algumas raz˜oes sobre porquˆeessa l´ogica ´einsustent´avel, e sugiro nomes para os 429 candidatos a planetas extrassolares conhecidos at´efevereiro de 2010. Os nomes seguem uma associa¸c˜ao com a constela¸c˜ao `aqual a estrela parental pertence e, desta forma, s˜ao em sua maioria retirados da mitologia greco-romana. Outras mitologias podem ser tamb´em usadas desde que uma associa¸c˜ao adequada seja estabelecida. Abstract. Extrasolar planets are not named and are referred to only by their assigned scientific designation. The reason given by the IAU to not name the planets is that it is considered impractical as planets are expected to be common. I advance some reasons as to why this logic is flawed, and suggest names for the 429 extrasolar planet candidates known as of Feb 2010. The names follow a scheme of association with the constellation that the host star pertains to, and therefore are mostly drawn from Roman-Greek mythology. Other mythologies may also be used given that a suitable association is established.