It is named after Greek mythological character Despoina, a nymph who was a daughter of Poseidon and Demeter.

Despina was discovered in late July 1989 from the images taken by the Voyager 2 probe.

It is likely that it is a rubble pile re-accreted from fragments of Neptune's original satellites, which were disrupted by perturbations from Triton soon after that moon's capture into a very eccentric initial orbit.

[9] Compositionally, Despina appears to be similar to other small inner Neptunian satellites, with a deep 3.0 micron feature attributed to water ice or hydrated silicate minerals.

[11] As it is also below Neptune's synchronous orbit radius, it is slowly spiralling inward due to tidal deceleration and may eventually impact Neptune's atmosphere, or break up into a planetary ring upon passing its Roche limit due to tidal stretching.