It was originally named Mount Stokes after John Lort Stokes, who was assistant surveyor during the second voyage of HMS Beagle (1831-1836) and captain of the survey ship HMS Acheron (1848-1851). Because of the prior naming of Mount Stokes in Nelson, the mountain was renamed La Perouse in honour of the French explorer Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse (also spelt comte de La Pérouse) whose expedition foundered on Vanikoro in the Santa Cruz Islands of the Solomon Islands in 1788.