It has long been the case that comets have been given their names from the person who worked out their orbital elements, Halley’s comet was first predicted to return by a man called Edmond Halley, who pieced together a number of similar comet sightings and comet Encke is named after the man who finally worked out the orbital elements of the comet and placed together its history of sightings. Today comets are still generally named after the person who finds them.
Picture of Edmond Halley