[5] In 1778, German physicist Johann Tobias Mayer discovered that γ Andromedae is a double star.

[13] Almach was the traditional name (also spelt as Almaach, Almaack, Almak, Almaak, or Alamak), derived from the Arabic العناق (al-‘anāq),[17] "the caracal" (desert lynx).

[18] Another term for this star used by medieval astronomers writing in Arabic was رجل المسلسلة (Rijl al Musalsalah), "Foot of The [Chained] Woman".

Consequently, the Chinese name for γ Andromedae itself is 天大將軍一 (Tiān Dà Jiāng Jūn yī, English: the First Star of Heaven's Great General).

[21] In the Babylonian star catalogues, γ Andromedae, together with Triangulum, formed the constellation known as MULAPIN (𒀯𒀳) "The Plough".

[8] In October 1842, Wilhelm Struve found that γ2 Andromedae was itself a double star whose components were separated by less than an arcsecond.

[28] Spectrograms taken from 1957 to 1959 revealed that γ Andromedae B was itself a spectroscopic binary, composed of two B-type main-sequence stars orbiting each other with a period of 2.67 days.