Named in honor of Leland E. Cunningham {1904–1989}, a prolific computer of comet orbits with F. L. Whipple {see planet  (1940)} at Harvard during the 1930s, observer of faint comets, including the discovery of 1941 I and the recovery of comet Gale in 1938, and since 1946 on the staff of the Leuschner Observatory, University of California. (M 3934) _ _.