It bore the traditional name Al Kab,[13] short for Kabdhilinan /kæbˈdɪlɪnæn/, from the Arabic كعب ذي العنان kaʽb ðīl-ʽinān[14][15] "the ankle[16] of the rein holder (charioteer)".

[18] At Iota Aurigae's distance, extinction from interstellar dust is causing a magnitude reduction of about 0.6.

[13] Examination of the spectrum yields a stellar classification of K3 II,[3] with the luminosity class of 'II' indicating this is a category of evolved star known as a bright giant.

[4] During the Extreme Solar Systems conference held on June 25–29, 2007, in Santorini, Greece, Reffert et al. announced the detection of two substellar objects orbiting Iota Aurigae in 2:1 resonance.

So far the detection has not been confirmed, though Hekker et al. (2008) listed significant radial velocity variations at periods of 767 and 1586 days.