British surveyor and geographer Sir George Everest, the man whose name was chosen to designate the roof of the world did not agree that the highest mountain on Earth should bear this name.  George Everest (July 4, 1790 – December 1, 1866) was born into a well-established family in the London borough of Greenwich, at the age of 16 he moved away from his family to pursue his military career in India.

In 1818 he was called upon as a principal assistant by William Lambton, director of the Great Trigonometric Survey Project.

From 1802, Everest was assigned a tedious task: to continue the measurement of a meridian arc from the southern tip of the peninsula to Nepal, along some 2,400 kilometers.

For his dedication to his work, in 1823, he was rewarded by his appointment as a project superintendent and from 1830 with the position of Surveyor General of India, which he held until his retirement.

His years of fieldwork led to multiple illnesses that he contracted. Malaria was almost unavoidable, but it was joined  by a list of various disease like typhoid fever, hepatitis, Kyasanur forest disease (a viral haemorrhagic fever transmitted by ticks, peripheral neuropathy and vision problems that lead to suspicion of multiple sclerosis, cervical radiculopathy (a pinched nerve in the neck), Guillain-Barre syndrome (an autoimmune disorder of the nervous system) and possible neurosyphilis, together with episodes of mental symptoms identified with the so-called Mad Hatter’s disease, caused by the ingestion of mercury, which Everest took in large doses to treat his ailments.

Despite his delicate health, Everest opened the doors of several scientific institutions, including the prestigious Royal Society. After retirement, when He returned to England, his pupil Andrew Scott Waugh occupied his position in India. He completed the measurement of the meridian in the north in 1841 and laid eyes on the snowy peaks of Himalayas.

 In 1852 that Indian Bengali mathematician Radhanath Sikdar informed Waugh that the so-called Peak XV was the highest in the world, with a calculated elevation of exactly 29,000 feet or 8,839.2 meters (today corrected to 8,848 meters).

After completing his calculations in 1852, he announced his results to the Royal Geographical Society. He proposed to name this highest by the name of his predecessor Sir George Everest.

After a long debate, the designation proposed by Waugh was finally officially adopted in 1865. But Everest himself resisted this offer. He did not want his surname to be written in the Hindi language as it would be difficult for the natives to pronounce the name.

Finally, it was decided that while the name of the mountain tends to be pronounced according to its literal writing, Sir George’s surname was pronounced “eev-rest“.