The modern scientific name Leucophaeus scoresbii, together with the obsolete common name "Scoresby's Gull", commemorates the English explorer William Scoresby (1789–1857).
The former name Scoresbysund derives from the Arctic explorer and whaler William Scoresby, who was the first to map the area in 1822.
The area of Scoresby was surveyed in 1857, and named after the Arctic explorer William Scoresby.
William Shakespeare | William Laud | William Blake | William | William III of England | William Morris | William McKinley | William Howard Taft | William Ewart Gladstone | William the Conqueror | William S. Burroughs | William Shatner | William Faulkner | William Randolph Hearst | William Wordsworth | William Tecumseh Sherman | William Hogarth | Prince William, Duke of Cambridge | William Penn | William Jennings Bryan | William Gibson | William Wilberforce | William James | William Makepeace Thackeray | Fort William | William Hanna | William Hague | William III | William Hurt | William Walton |
Led by Lieutenant James Marr, the 14-strong team left the Falkland Islands in two ships, HMS William Scoresby (a minesweeping trawler) and Fitzroy, on Saturday January 29, 1944.
Discovered in February 1936 by DI personnel on the William Scoresby and named by them for Professor C.E. Tilley, who studied the rock specimens brought back by the expedition.