In reply to Gordon Stainforth:
> I may be wrong but I think historically the naming of the Lake District went: first, vaguely, 'the Cumbrian fells', then 'The Lake District' (at time of very first tourists?), then 'The English Lakes', I think primarily thanks to the Lakes poets. Wordsworth may have been the first simply to refer to them as 'The Lakes' in his 'Guide to the Lakes'.
I think you are right about Wordsworth. I have a tourist guide published in Penrith in 1832 which refers to the 'The Lakes' throughout.
The 'Cumbrian Fells' label may be newer as it didn't become Cumbria until 1974, though the origins of the word go back at least as far as the 9th Century and was used before the counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland came into being in, I think, the 13th Century.
I don't mind what you call them - The Lakes, The Lake District, even Lakeland - I know what you mean. (I'm from the Northern Fells btw).
I'll admit to ignorantly adding an 's' to The Peak before UKC taught me the error of my ways. Now when will everyone stop talking about "the Himalayas"? One mountain is a himal. A lot of himal all huddled together = Himalaya. We anglicised it by adding the s and now they are seemily foreever saddled with our gratuitous and incorrect 's'. Unless the Paec can rise up in solidarity and shame us all out of using it? Go on, you've all done enough on grit.