Discovered 1906 Aug. 22 by A. Kopff at Heidelberg.

Named in remembrance of the Dutch-German solar eclipse expedition to Christmas Island in 1922. Malabar is a city and mountain on Java. (I. van Houten-Groeneveld; B. Hidayat)

The naming is described in AN 218, 253 (1923): “Aus Anlass der holländisch-deutschen SonnenfinsternisEx-pedition nach Christmas Island wurde der Planet der Niederländisch-Indischen Sternkundigen-Vereinigung zur Benennung überlassen als Zeichen des Dankes für die der Expedition zuteil gewordene Förderung. Herr K. A. R. Bosscha auf Malabar (Java), der Vorsitzende der Vereinigung, erteilte ihm den Namen.” Bosscha and his friend Kerkhoven determined that after their death a great part of their capital should be put into a fund to serve astronomy in the Netherlands and Indonesia. In 1954 the Kerkhoven-Bosscha-Fund was established in Leiden. In the course of the years this fund has grown and helps today the Dutch and Indonesian astronomy in many ways. Bosscha dedicated the name to the Malabar mountain, 40 km south of the city of Bandung, location of his beautifully cultivated tea plantations.