Named in honor of Pierre Couturier (b. 1942), president of the Observatoire de Paris. An expert in coronal heating and solar wind expansion, Couturier was initially a plasma physicist working on the solar wind. He became co-investigator of the radio experiment on the International Comet Explorer, which flew by comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner in 1985. For five years, Couturier was associate director of the Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers, and he then became director of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Corporation. Name suggested by M. A. Barucci and M. Fulchignoni, and citation prepared by C. de Bergh.