It was discovered on 15 October 1993, by Japanese amateur astronomers Kin Endate and Kazuro Watanabe at the Kitami Observatory in eastern Hokkaidō, Japan.
[1][6] The name was suggested by F. Hemery and Jiří Grygar as a reference to the French novella The Little Prince.
The title character lived on an asteroid named B-612, which is the number 46610 written in hexadecimal notation.
[2] Like the asteroid in The Little Prince, Bésixdouze was first observed in a single night, several years before its official discovery.
[7] It says: "The decimal number 46610 translates to the hexadecimal B612, the designation of the fictitious minor planet in de St. Exupéry's 1943 novel Le Petit Prince.