[7] The peaks were named after Charles Darwin, John Fiske, Alfred Russel Wallace, Herbert Spencer, Ernst Haeckel and Thomas Henry Huxley.

This mountain's name was officially adopted in 1911 by the United States Board on Geographic Names, based on a suggestion by Grove Karl Gilbert, to honor French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829), an early proponent of the idea that biological evolution occurred in accordance with natural laws.

[11] Most weather fronts originate in the Pacific Ocean, and travel east toward the Sierra Nevada mountains.

As fronts approach, they are forced upward by the peaks, causing them to drop their moisture in the form of rain or snowfall onto the range (orographic lift).

The climate supports a small glacier in the cirque below Lamarck's steep northern cliffs.