[12] This minor planet was named in honor of Ukrainian–Soviet cosmonaut Georgy Dobrovolsky, commander of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft, who died on 30 June 1971 during the vehicle's return to Earth after completing the flight program of the first crewed orbital station, Salyut.

The subsequently numbered minor planets 1790 Volkov and 1791 Patsayev were named in honour of his dead crew members.

[13] The so-far best rated rotational lightcurve of Dobrovolsky was obtained from photometric observations by American astronomer Brian A. Skiff in March 2011.

[a] Other lightcurves were obtained by Claes-Ingvar Lagerkvist (in 1973) and at the Palomar Transient Factory (in 2014), giving a period of 5.8, 4.800 and 4.8111 hours, respectively (U=2/2/2).

[8] According to the survey carried out by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, Dobrovolsky measures 7.92 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.185 (best result),[4][5][6] while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.24 – derived from 8 Flora, the largest member and namesake of its family – and calculates a diameter of 9.85 kilometers with an absolute magnitude of 12.2.