Named in honour of Simona Rumenova Nikolova (b. 1971-06-24 in Shumen, Bulgaria), who became interested in astronomy as a teenager and enthusiastically calculated empheris data for comets using graphical techniques while working for the Royal Astronomical Observatory in Sofia, Bulgaria. Nikolova did undergraduate work at the University of Regina in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and was working on a Ph.D. in 2001 at the University of Western Ontario under Jim Jones. Nikolova's research interests included modelling interplanetary dust and the effect of gravitational perturbations on interplanetary dust and comets. Nikolova recently took a position at the Robarts Research Institute in London, Ontario.
Name proposed and citation prepared by Peter Jedicke and Robert Jedicke.

Reference: MPC 45338