 The name "Belgica" was suggested during the height of World War I by American astronomer Joel Hastings Metcalf, but the Director of the German Astronomisches Rechen-Institut in Berlin, Fritz Cohn, rejected the proposal based on political considerations, as Belgium was occupied by German troops at the time.In his "Dictionary of Minor Planets Names", astronomer Lutz Schmadel described this piece of history involving minor planet names in detail.Naming citation was first mentioned in "The Names of the Minor Planets" by Paul Herget in 1955 ().