Now that that nasty "definition of a planet" business is actually drawing to a close, I thought I'd toss in a comment about the object officially known as 2003 UB313, and unofficially known by lesbians and watchers of cheesy television as "Xena". I do not support naming the object Xena for a number of reasons, some of which I have to admit, are stronger than others:
1. It doesn't fit with the general naming scheme of our planets. Our planets have been named with a generally Greco-Roman mythology theme. Xena doesn't follow that theme. I've encountered this issue before. Every system adminstrator I've met, including me, tends to name devices on their network with a theme. Every system administrator has also encounterd the guy who wants his machine or printer named "potato" when the theme is "owls". It's annoying and it creates work - name that thing Xena, and just like the printer named Potato on Owlnet, people will be puzzling over it until the end of time, and they WILL pester the IAU about it.
2. Xena, no offence to Lucy Lawless, was not good TV. It was cheesy. It was often badly written. It was often silly and regularly tripped into stupid territory. It's one of the few TV shows I've seen a decent amount of over the last decade or so due to business travel. Nothing on this show is worthy of a permanent name in the celestial sphere.
3. It sets a generally bad precedent to name the thing after a TV character, especially one that is likely not widely known outside the US and Canada.
So, all that said, I propose naming the the thing Tiberius. I think there are a number of advantages to this name.
First, and foremost, it fits better with the overall naming scheme of the solar system. Tiberius is a Roman name. Tiberius was, in fact, a Caesar. He was reluctantly made Caesar and was succeeded by Caligula. The reluctance of of Augustus to make Tiberius his successor plays well on the overall reluctance/difficulty there has been declaring the object a planet. Tiberius was succeeded by Caligula, which is of no special significance other than that the life of Caligula was immortalized in a bad movie and if Xena, from a bad TV show, can rate consideration, surely a tie-in to a terrible movie that was (and is) much better known around the world is a better choice of name.
Second, Tiberius is the middle name of that most famous of space explorers, James Tiberius Kirk. *EVERYBODY* who has access to television knows who James Kirk is, and without too much thought can recognize the contribution of Star Trek to television history, and even to science and invention. If a TV show has to be immortalized with a name on a planet, it must be Star Trek. The program went off the air in 1969 and continues to affect our TV and movie viewing to this day. In 37 years who will remember Xena, Warrior Princess? If the intent is to leave a (US) cultural mark on the solar system, then at least pick a good one. Even "Spock's Brain" is better than the majority of Xena episodes that I've seen. And besides, if 2003 UB313 has moons, there's a whole stack of names of James Kirk female conquests that they could be named after.
So I vote to name 2003 UB313 "Tiberius".
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