The system GD 165 is named after Henry L. Giclas, an American Astronomer who lived throughout the 20th century.

[11] GD 165 B was discovered in 1988 by Eric Becklin and Benjamin Zuckerman at the University of California, Los Angeles.

[12] GD 165 B was the first brown dwarf discovered to be cooler than M-Type stars[13] and was initially assigned the spectral type ≥M10.

It would not be regarded as a brown dwarf until 1999, when new spectral types L-Type and T-Type for objects cooler than M-type stars were established, reclassifying GD 165 B as L4.

[6] GD 165 A has an extremely dim luminosity of 0.0030L☉,[6] making it completely invisible to the naked eye.