It was named after Parthenopē, one of the Sirens in Greek mythology, said to have founded the city of Naples.

De Gasparis "used his utmost endeavours to realise a 'Parthenope' in the heavens, such being the name suggested by Sir John Herschel on the occasion of the discovery of Hygiea in 1849".

In 1988 a search for satellites or dust orbiting this asteroid was performed using the UH88 telescope at the Mauna Kea Observatories, but the effort came up empty.

[10] Based upon a light curve that was generated from photometric observations of this asteroid at Pulkovo Observatory, it has a rotation period of 13.722 ± 0.001 hours and varies in brightness by 0.10 ± 0.0s in magnitude.

[3] In 2007, Baer and Chesley calculated a higher mass and density for Parthenope based on perturbations by the 90 km asteroid 17 Thetis.