Named in memory of Federico Rutllant Alcina (1904–1971), director of the Observatório Astronómico Nacional of the Universidad de Chile in Santiago from 1950 to 1963, later professor of mathematics at the Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria in Valparaiso. Among his principal contributions to Chilean astronomy were his arrangement for moving the observatory from Lo Espejo to its present location at Cerro Calán, an agreement with the University of Florida that created the Radio Observatório de Maipu, an agreement with the Universities of Chicago and Texas — and later AURA — that produced the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory, and an agreement with the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences that produced the Estacion Astronómica de Cerro El Roble — where this minor planet was discovered. (M 10545) _ _.