Alku is asteroid #3037 and also known as 1944 BA. Alku is a carbonaceous asteroid and was discovered by the Finnish physicist and astronomer Yrjö Väisälä at the Turku Observatory. Alku’s orbit is characterized by a semi-major axis of 2.67 Astronomical Units, an eccentricity of 0.19, a period of revolution of 1 596 days, and an inclination of 19.0 degrees.

Alku is named after the boyhood boat of the discoverer, built by his father. His name was Johannes Weisell. Yrjö Väisälä’s mother’s name was Emma Birgitta Jääskeläinen. She had adopted the name of her husband, so Yrjö Väisälä originally had the family-name Weisell. His mother changed the family-name Weisell two years after the death of Johannes Weisell to the Finnish spelling, which is Väisälä. This makes quite doubtful whether Yrjö Väisälä’s father knew Finnish. So I had to double-check what the boat’s name Alku means. The naming citation states that alku means beginning. This is correct, but alku also means commencement, inception, start; first, prime, primeval, or primordial.

So Alku’s astrological interpretation can either be derived from a name similar to the name of the asteroid Prime or from the fact that Alku is named after a boat or after the fact that this boat was built for a boy by his father. The asteroid Prime already has the meaning prime, so Alku isn’t needed for this. I didn’t find yet any other asteroid named after a boat, so Alku seems to be needed for this meaning. Alku also indicates a commencement as well as a father’s love for his son.