why do astronomers commonly name newly discovered planets and stars just strings of xharacters instead of actual words?

Question

why do astronomers commonly name newly discovered planets and stars just strings of xharacters instead of actual words?

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Answer 1

There are too many stars and planets to give them all proper names. Instead they are given a catalog number. The first name is the name of the catalog, then a number designating the index into this catalog, finally a letter numbering the planet in the solar system with stars getting upper case letters and planets getting lower case letters. The same star system might even appear in multiple catalogs and therefore have different names. And as we discover new planets in an existing solar system the names of the other planets might change.