It bore the traditional names "Dubhe" and "Ak." "Dubhe" derives from the Arabic for 'bear', , from the phrase "" 'the back of the Greater Bear'. The rarer "Ak" means 'The Eye'. In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) to catalog and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN's first bulletin of July 2016 included a table of the first two batches of names approved by the WGSN; which included "Dubhe" for the star α Ursae Majoris A.