McCoy is asteroid #4259 and also known as 1988 SB3. McCoy was discovered by the American astronomer Schelte John “Bobby” Bus at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), La Serena, Chile. McCoy is a member of the asteroid-family Koronis or Lacrimosa.

McCoy is named after Timothy James McCoy (born 1964), an American planetary geologist and curator of the national meteorite collection at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington. This museum has websites to introduce its staff, including a Tim McCoy. So we may know his job, his professional interests, and how he looks. But nothing more.

The name McCoy is an Anglicized form (there are some other forms too) of Gaelic Mac Aodha. This means son of Aodh, who is an ancient Irish god of fire. So McCoy means son of the fire.

The asteroid McCoy was discovered in 1988, long after the original Star Trek series became famous. Hence I don’t get rid of the suspicion that McCoy was only named after Tim McCoy and only with the surname because he has the same surname as Leonard H. “Bones” McCoy, one of the main characters of Star Trek. Another main character, Mr. Spock, also got an asteroid named after him by a detour to avoid rejection of the name. Even the actor portraying Mr. Spock got an asteroid named after him. So Star Trek has enough cultural impact for naming asteroids after Star Trek characters and Star Trek may serve as a modern mythology. (Excavated parts of the original series serve as an old mythology in The Shannara Chronicles.) The actor portraying Leonard McCoy, DeForest Kelley, didn’t get an asteroid named after him, but this could be because an asteroid (#111818 or 2002 DT) named Deforest as well as an asteroid (#4477 or 1983 SB) named Kelley already exist.

McCoy is because of his etymology related with deities of fire. This fits well for contrasting “Bones” with the cold logic of Mr. Spock. The former is the emotional and the latter the rational counselor of Captain Kirk, who isn’t represented by any astrological force yet. But this isn’t necessary when Mr. Spock has already the role of showing the rational side in making a decision, while McCoy shows the emotional side in making a decision. McCoy is of course also a person name asteroid hinting to the many people with the family name McCoy. There is more than one famous person among them. Because a scientist was picked to lend his name, so McCoy can still show interest in asteroids and meteorites and volcanism on other planets.