Yrsa is asteroid #351 and also known as 1892 V. Yrsa’s orbit is characterized by a semi-major axis of 2.76 Astronomical Units, an eccentricity of 0.16, a period of revolution of 1 678 days, and an inclination of 9.2 degrees. Yrsa was discovered by the German (from Baden, a grand-dukedom with Karlsruhe as the capital, while Germany still didn’t exist) astronomer Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf, usually referred to as Max Wolf, at the Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory (Landessternwarte Heidelberg-Königstuhl).

Yrsa is a Scandinavian given female name, but not of Scandinavian origin. The name instead is believed to be a Scandinavian variant of the name Ursa. After whom the asteroid Yrsa really got named is unknown, but women bearing the name Yrsa (and there are quite some of them) are named after Queen Yrsa from Norse mythology. Her tale exists in several variants, but the core of all of them is that Yrsa married her father without knowing that he is her father. They together have a son, whose name is Hroðulf or Rolfo or Hrólfr. In most variants, her father also doesn’t know that Yrsa is his daughter. But her mother some day tells her the truth and Yrsa leaves her father. After that they have different fates in the different variants.

I wonder why parents would by naming a daughter Yrsa remind at this tale. I can only imagine that it isn’t taken literally, but symbolic for the ties within a family. So the asteroid Yrsa represents the tie between father and daughter.