Named in honor of Nataliya Vladimirovna Ashkova {1932– }, an expert on the dynamics of minor planets on the staff of the Institute for Theoretical Astronomy from 1954 to 1987. She was heavily involved in the automation of computations and to the improvement of orbits of minor planets for the Ephemerides of Minor Planets {see planet (5001)}. (M 17028) _ _.
Discovered on 31-8-1973 in Nauchnyj by Smirnova, T. M.