Named in honor of Akimasa Nakamura (1961– ), a prolific Japanese observer of minor planets and comets. In the course of his observing program at the Kuma Kogen Astronomical Observatory he has obtained thousands of precise positions of minor bodies. His estimates of the magnitudes of minor planets are of particularly high quality and serve as the standard in the analysis of “astrometric” magnitude estimates. He is also Japanese coordinator for the International Comet Quarterly. This name marks the occasion of Nakamura’s becoming a father in early 1999. (M 35495) _ _.