Kodaira is asteroid #6500 and also known as 1993 ET. Kodaira was discovered by Endate Kin (円館 金) and Watanabe Kazurō (渡辺 和郎) at the Kitami Observatory. Kodaira is a highly eccentric (0.42) and highly inclined (29.3°) Mars-orbit-crosser of the uncommon type B from the Asteroid Main Belt.

Kodaira is named after Kodaira Kei’ichi (小平 桂一), a Japanese physicist and astronomer. He was born somewhere in the Tōkyō Metropolitan Region, went to school there and then studied physics at the University of Tōkyō, then astronomy from 1959 until 1961. He got a scholarship for the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. There he got a doctor degree in 1964. There he also met the woman, who became his wife. They have a daughter, who became a sports presenter. She was born in 1966 and her name is Fujii Keiko Anett (藤井 桂子 アネット), née Kodaira Keiko Anett (小平 桂子 アネット). Kodaira Kei’ichi (小平 桂一) was born in 1937, retired in 2007 and seems to be still alive. He first worked at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, then he got a Japanese doctor degree too and then he worked at the California Institute of Technology from 1967 until 1969. Kodaira Kei’ichi (小平 桂一) became a professor in 1971 and was a guest professor at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany from 1972 until 1973. Kodaira Kei’ichi (小平 桂一) became vice-president of the Commission No. 36 of the International Astronomical Union in 1979 and then president in 1982. This term of office ended in 1985. He returned to the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan in 1988. He became the observatory’s director in 1994. He retired from this position in 2000 and as a professor in 2007.

This is what I could figure out about Kodaira Kei’ichi (小平 桂一). Because he also studied and taught in Germany, so I expected that the research should be easy. But I used sources in German, in Japanese, and in English and some uncertainties are still remaining. I sometimes was unsure whether the texts describe the same person. Kei’ichi (桂一) is a Japanese male name with many spelling variants, so there can only be derived that the person is male. This name also has a female variant, which is Keiko (桂子). Kodaira (小平) is a family-name, but also the name of a city in the Tōkyō Metropolitan Region. Kodaira (小平) literally means small plain.

I don’t see anything unusual in the biography of Kodaira Kei’ichi (小平 桂一). Kodaira is of course representing persons with the family-name Kodaira (小平). Besides this Kodaira represents small plains in questions of topography. I don’t see any other possible meaning of Kodaira so far.