Over the past few centuries, a small number of stars have been named after individual people.
This includes Gliese, Wolf, Ross, Bradley, Piazzi, Lacaille, Struve, Groombridge, Lalande, Krueger, Mayer, Weisse, Gould, Luyten and others.
In July 2014 the IAU launched NameExoWorlds, a process for giving proper names to exoplanets and their host stars,[1] the outcome of which was announced in December 2015.
Apart from the few formally approved by the IAU, and leaving aside commercial attempts, stars named after individuals fall broadly into two groups.
The earliest noted example was Sualocin and Rotanev, which names have now been approved by the IAU WGSN (see above).
More recently, during the Apollo program, it was common for astronauts to be trained in celestial navigation, and to use a list of naked-eye stars which to take bearings.