List of names on Mount Kenya

Wangari Maathai tells the following story about the naming: Krapf and Johannes Rebmann asked their guide, a member of the Kamba community, who was carrying a gourd, what they called the mountain, and the guide, believing that the Germans were referring to the gourd, replied kĩĩ-nyaa, which became the name of the mountain and then the country.

[12] Other ethnic groups living around the mountain such as the Agikuyu called this mountain 'Kirinyaga'; 'nyaga' in Kikuyu means white patches, hence it is also the Kikuyu word for Ostrich, and 'kiri' means with: so in essence they called it the 'mountain with patches like an ostrich'.

[21] Before 1920 the area now known as Kenya was known as the British East Africa Protectorate and so there was no need to mention mount when referring to the mountain.

[17] Kenya achieved independence in 1963, and Jomo Kenyatta was elected as the first president.

Firstly, several Maasai chieftains have been commemorated, with names such as Batian, Nelion and Lenana.

They commemorate Mbatian, a Maasai Laibon (Medicine Man), Nelieng, his brother, and Lenana and Sendeyo, his sons.

Arthur Firmin, who made many first ascents, has been remembered in Firmin's Col. Humphrey Slade, of Pt Slade, explored the moorland areas of the mountain in the 1930s, and possibly made the first ascent of Sendeyo.

Pigott was the Acting Administrator of Imperial British East Africa at the time of Gregory's expedition, and there is a group of four peaks to the east of the main peaks named after governors of Kenya and early settlers; Coryndon, Grigg, Delamere and McMillan.

[8] Rivers starting above 3,000 metres (9,800 ft) are listed clockwise around the mountain from the north.

The rivers on Mount Kenya have been named after the villages on the slopes of the mountain that they flow close to.