In 1921, Charles Howard-Bury led a reconaissance expedition to Mt. Everest.  In his book about the expedition, Charles writes about footprints found while crossing the "Lhakpa-la" at an altitude of about 21,000 feet / 6,400 m.  Howard-Bury describes the footprints as "probably being caused by a large loping grey wolf".  In the soft snow, these footprints formed double tracks that resembled those of a barefooted man.  One of the accompanying guides claimed that the tracks belonged to the "Metoh-Kangmi".  "Metoh" tranlslates as "man-bear" while "kang-mi" translates as "snowman".

Henry Newman, a contributor to the daily Indian newspaper, "The Statesman", interviewed the porters of Howard-Bury's Mt. Everest Reconaissance mission.  Upon being told of the Metoh-Kangmi, Newman mis-interpreted "Metoh" as "dirty".  He substituted the synonym "Abominable", hence the name "Abominable Snowman".