The ’Send Your Name to Mars’ project asked science fans from all over the globe to submit their names. Those names were then etched into tiny chips that were just recently affixed to the rover. NASA opened submissions in mid-2019 and allowed fans to send in their names for several months before closing the floodgates in Sep which resulted in total tally of 10,932,295 names coming in.
I always find out about these dam things after the deadline. Curse my feeble attention span.
Got my name in there :)
This has been an effective public relations campaign. In exchange for an almost insignificant increase in mass NASA has given a large number of people an extra reason to care about the Perseverance Rover.