Named in honor of the Swedish astronomer Erik Holmberg {1909–2000} on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. Internationally renowned for his pioneering work on galaxies, paricularly multiple galaxies, Holmberg served as an assistant and associate professors at Lund during 1937–1951 and as professor at Uppsala and director of the Uppsala Observatory during 1959–1975. Holmberg was an inspiring teacher, and the discoverer is very grateful to him for allowing a young student to start work on minor planets, until then an almost unknown topic for research in Uppsala. (M 12973) _ _.