The designation WASP-39 comes from the Wide Angle Search for Planets. Since the planet transits the star, the star is classified as a planetary transit variable and has received the variable star designation V732 Virginis.^[5]

This was one of the systems selected to be named in the 2019 NameExoWorlds campaign during the 100th anniversary of the IAU, which assigned each country a star and planet to be named. This system was assigned to Aruba.^[8] The approved names were Malmok for the star and Bocaprins for the planet, named after Malmok and Boca Prins, both beaches in Aruba.^[9][10]

The planet WASP-39b, later named Bocaprins, is a low-density hot Jupiter, about the mass of Saturn but larger, discovered in 2011 by the Wide Angle Search for Planets using the transit method.^[4] Its orbit is aligned with the star's equator.^[11] It has been a target for observation by the Hubble Space Telescope^[12] and James Webb Space Telescope,^[13] which have identified water vapor,^[14] carbon dioxide,^[15] and sulfur dioxide in its atmosphere.^[16]

There is evidence of a possible circumstellar disk around WASP-39, farther than 2 au from the star.^[17]