A small number of galaxies or galaxy groups have been named after individual people. In most cases, the named individual was the person who discovered the object, who first brought attention to it, or who first studied it scientifically.

Many of the brighter galaxies visible from the northern hemisphere

Northern Hemisphere

The Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of its equator—the word hemisphere literally means “half sphere”. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator...

 have Messier

Messier object

The Messier objects are a set of astronomical objects first listed by French astronomer Charles Messier in 1771. The original motivation of the catalogue was that Messier was a comet hunter, and was frustrated by objects which resembled but were not comets...

 numbers, named after Charles Messier

Charles Messier

Charles Messier was a French astronomer most notable for publishing an astronomical catalogue consisting of deep sky objects such as nebulae and star clusters that came to be known as the 110 "Messier objects"...

. For instance, the Andromeda galaxy

Andromeda Galaxy

The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Andromeda. It is also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224, and is often referred to as the Great Andromeda Nebula in older texts. Andromeda is the nearest spiral galaxy to the...

 is Messier 31 and the Whirlpool Galaxy

Whirlpool Galaxy

The Whirlpool Galaxy is an interacting grand-design spiral galaxy that is estimated to be 23 ± 4 million light-years from the Milky Way Galaxy. in the constellation Canes Venatici...

 is Messier 51. There are a few other comprehensive catalogs that assign the cataloguer's name to galaxies. For instance, Markarian galaxies, named after B. E. Markarian

B. E. Markarian

Benjamin Jegischewitsch Markarjan was an Armenian astrophysicist. Markarian's Chain was named after him when he discovered that this string of galaxies moves with a common motion, in the mid 1970s...

, are galaxies with excess blue and ultraviolet emission; galaxies in the Atlas of peculiar galaxies

Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies

The Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies is a catalog of peculiar galaxies produced by Halton Arp. A total of 338 galaxies are presented in the atlas, which was originally published in 1966 by the California Institute of Technology....

 are assigned an Arp number after Halton Arp

Halton Arp

Halton Christian Arp is an American astronomer. He is known for his 1966 Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, which catalogues many examples of interacting and merging galaxies...

 who produced the catalog; etc. Objects in these catalogs are excluded below, except in cases where they carry the name of an additional person.

Named galaxies

• Bode's Galaxy
  Messier 81
  Messier 81 is a spiral galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. Due to its proximity to Earth, large size and active galactic nucleus Messier 81 (also known as NGC 3031 or Bode's Galaxy) is a spiral galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa...
  
  is Messier 81
  Messier 81
  Messier 81 is a spiral galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. Due to its proximity to Earth, large size and active galactic nucleus Messier 81 (also known as NGC 3031 or Bode's Galaxy) is a spiral galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa...
  
  , a spiral galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major.
• Hanny's Voorwerp
  Hanny's Voorwerp
  ' , Dutch for Hanny's object, is an astronomical object of unknown nature. It was discovered in 2007 by Dutch school teacher Hanny van Arkel, while she was participating as an amateur volunteer in the Galaxy Zoo project...
  
  ("Hanny's object") is a galaxy of unknown nature.
• Hoag's Object
  Hoag's Object
  Hoag's Object is a non-typical galaxy of the type known as a ring galaxy. The appearance of this object has interested amateur astronomers as much as its uncommon structure has fascinated professionals...
  
  is a peculiar galaxy in the shape of a ring.
• Holmberg II is a dwarf irregular galaxy about 9.8 million light-years away in the M81 Group.
• Holmberg IX
  Holmberg IX
  Holmberg IX is a dwarf irregular galaxy and a satellite galaxy of M81. The galaxy is named after Erik Holmberg who first described it. Based on the observed age distribution of stars it contains it is thought to have formed within the last 200 Myr making it the youngest nearby galaxy...
  
  is a dwarf irregular galaxy and a satellite galaxy of Messier 81.
• Huchra's Lens
  Huchra's Lens
  Huchra's lens is the lensing galaxy of the Einstein Cross ; it is also called ZW 2237+030 or QSO 2237+0305 G. It exhibits the phenomenon of gravitational lensing that was postulated by Albert Einstein when he realized that gravity would be able to bend light and thus could have lens-like effects....
  
  is a lensed galaxy.
• Komossa'a object is a galaxy in which the supermassive black hole disrupted a star.
• Maffei 1
  Maffei 1
  Maffei 1 is a giant elliptical galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia. It is the closest giant elliptical galaxy to the Milky Way. Once believed to be a member of the Local Group, it is now known to belong to the IC 342/Maffei Group...
  
  is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia and the closest giant elliptical galaxy to the Milky Way.
• Maffei 2
  Maffei 2
  Maffei 2 is an intermediate spiral galaxy about 10 million light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. Maffei 2 and Maffei 1 were both discovered by Paolo Maffei in 1968 from their infrared emission. Maffei 2 lies in the Zone of Avoidance and is about 99.5% obscured by the Milky Way's...
  
  is a spiral galaxy about 10 million light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia.
• Mayall's Object
  Mayall's Object
  Mayall's Object is the result of two colliding galaxies located 500 million light years away within the constellation of Ursa Major. It was discovered by Nicholas U. Mayall of the Lick Observatory on 13 March 1940, using the Crossley reflector...
  
  
• Willman 1
  Willman 1
  Willman 1 is an ultra low-luminosity dwarf galaxy or a star cluster. It is named after Beth Willman of Haverford College, the lead author of a study based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey data. The object is a satellite of the Milky Way; ~120,000 light-years away. Willman 1 has an elliptical shape...
  
  is an ultra low-mass dwarf galaxy.
• The Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte
  Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte
  The Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte galaxy is an irregular galaxy discovered in 1909 by Max Wolf, and is located on the outer edges of the local group. The discovery of the nature of the galaxy was accredited to Knut Lundmark and Philibert Jacques Melotte in 1926. It is in the constellation Cetus.-Star...
  
  galaxy is an irregular galaxy on the outer edges of the Local Group. It is in the constellation Cetus.