The highest mountain in the world is named after a surveyor, Colonel Sir George Everest, who never actually saw the mountain.

George Everest spent much of his working life surveying in India and took over the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India in 1823, but retired to England in 1843 after becoming ill. 

After the announcement of Peak XV as the highest mountain in the world, Andrew Waugh, Everest's successor, wrote: "...here is a mountain most probably the highest in the world without any local name that I can discover...", so he proposed "...to perpetuate the memory of that illustrious master of geographical research...Everest."

Many people thought it should take local names such as Chomolungma (Tibetan) or Devadhunka (Nepali).  After much debate, the Royal Geographical Society in London officially adopted the name Mount Everest in 1865.