Last January 2006, New Horizons spacecraft was launched from Cape Carnaveral, on board there is a device built by students. This device has a special name honouring whom?

It is called the 'Student Dust Counter' and honours the girl who named Pluto 75 years ago. see here

Yes, Venetia Burney Phair. Good answer Jenny.

quote:

Originally posted by mozart56:
Yes, Venetia Burney Phair. Good answer Jenny.

Except she isn't or wasn't Venetia Burney Phair, methinks. At 11 she was Miss Burney, later she was Mrs Phair but she was surely never Mrs Burney Phair ( English, you see )

You are right about that, but I just copied it from the web site, provided by Jenny Roberts (which was also my source),and is in English "The tag honors Venetia Burney Phair, who at age 11 offered the name "Pluto" for the newly discovered ninth planet in 1930."

I don't see nothing wrong in naming both her maiden and married names. In fact I think it helps identify the right person in a way. ...unless your name is Marilyn Monroe.....then we know who you really are!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by mozart56:
You are right about that, but I just copied it from the web site, provided by Jenny Roberts (which was also my source),and is in English "The tag honors Venetia Burney Phair, who at age 11 offered the name "Pluto" for the newly discovered ninth planet in 1930."

It's a curious American (and formal, official only, French practice ) to cite someone using both maiden and married names. To a Briton it sounds odd indeed and the more so when the subject is herself a Briton and so would never have called herself that .

Historically the origin of British double-barrelled names (e.g Fanshawe-Smythe ) has been the insistence of the bride's father on having his family name perpetuated. That was usually not a case of vanity or egotism as much as it was of money and power. Years ago, up until 1882 here, a wife had no right to keep her own property on marriage. Oftentimes her family was the one with the great wealth. So her father would set up a trust to own and administer 'her' property and keep it out of the hands of the husband. It was quite common for him to insist that, in return and in recognition of the fact, the new family bore both his and the groom's surnames. A similar process might ensue on the joining of two great families. As an alternative, many family names which are not hyphenated still carry on the ancestral mother's maiden name as a middle name for each child instead, often for generations to today.