Venetia Phair: Woman Responsible for Naming Pluto

Venetia Phair, the woman responsible for naming planet-until-recently Pluto, has died at the age of 90. Eleven at the time she named the then-planet, succumbed to an undisclosed illness at her home in England.

In 1930, Venetia Phair was having breakfast with her grandfather. "My grandfather, as usual, opened the paper, The Times, and in it he read that a new planet had been discovered. He wondered what it should be called. We all wondered. And then I said, 'Why not call it Pluto?' And the whole thing stemmed from that, " Ms. Phair said in a recent movie about the naming of the new planet.

Her grandfather, Falconor Madan, was the retired librarian of an Oxford library, who then suggested his granddaughter's proposed name to his friend Herbert Hall Turner, professor of astronomy at Oxford. The same day Turner spoke with Madan, he attended a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, where possible names for the planet were being discussed.

After the name was announced, Phair was awarded a five-pound note by her grandfather for her contribution to history.

She maintained all her life that the planet was meant to be named after the Roman god of the underworld, and not the Disney character. She claimed that many of the names from Greek and Roman mythology had already been used, and she was simply trying to follow the trend with the remaining names she knew.

She was reported to be unperturbed by the International Astronomical Union's 2006 decision to downgrade Pluto from planet to dwarf planet, but she is one of few involved in the Pluto debate that seemed to not have an opinion.

The downgrade was seen by many in the astronomical community as necessary in order to preserve the definition of planets to be objects of a certain size and type of orbit, but there were also many traditionalists who felt emotionally connected to the tiny outer planet. Pluto's irregular orbit was always an anomaly, but what to do about its designation was only a matter of debate until the decision was finally reached three years ago.

Ms. Phair was also lucky enough to have an asteroid named in her honor, 6235 Burney, although no one can be sure how much that softened the blow.

A math major and instructor, Ms. Phair is survived by her son, Patrick. Her husband, Maxwell Phair, passed away in 2006.

Venetia Phair dies at 90, www.latimes.com