Adopted 9 June 1960 on 82K as a long-established local name.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

"In 1900, Thomas Starbird, a native of Massachusetts who became a Canadian citizen, settled on Horsethief Creek and for many years maintained the Mountain Valley ranch as a holiday resort. He was a mining-expert and, in his prospecting, discovered the glacier which bears his name, and also the Lake of the Hanging Glaciers [sic] - which he named Lake Maye in honor of his wife. He revisited the lake in 1911 with his wife and a party including Victor Johnson of Minnesota, Lord Stafford, Archie Jacobs and James Burn, both of Scotland, their guides John Hirst and Ernest Rafford, and Mr. Herbert Wl Gleason of Massachusetts. These appear to have been the earliest visitors to the lake. Lewis R. Freeman was in Horsethief Valley with a camera-man in 1920 and brought the lake to popular attention, with transient publicity, as a 'source of the Columbia River'..." (The Purcell Range of British Columbia, by J. Monroe Thorington, American Alpine Club, New York, 1946, p.28).

Source: included with note