Name variations

The name Yeti is derived from the Tibetan yeh-ti (Tibetan: གཡའ་དྲེད་; Wylie: g.ya' dred), a compound of the words yeh (Tibetan: གཡའ་; Wylie: g.ya'), meaning "rocky" or "rocky place", and Pti, te or teh (Tibetan: དྲེད་; Wylie: dred), which translates as "bear", the full name being "rock bear".
Pranavananda states that the words "ti", "te" and "teh" are derived from the spoken word 'tre' (spelled "dred"), Tibetan for bear, with the 'r' so softly pronounced as to be almost inaudible, thus making it "te" or "teh".
Other terms used by Himalayan peoples do not translate exactly the same, but refer to legendary and indigenous wildlife:
Jo-bran, Kang Admi, Mirka, Migoi, Dzu-teh, Meh-teh (Tibetan: མི་དྲེད་; Wylie: mi dred) translates as "man-bear"
Dzu-teh - 'dzu' translates as "cattle" and the full meaning translates as "cattle bear" and is the Himalayan Red Bear.
Migoi or Mi-go (Tibetan Wylie: mi rgod) (pronounced mey-goo) translates as "Wild Man".
Mirka - another name for "wild-man", however as local legend has it "anyone who sees one dies or is killed". The latter is taken from a written statement by Frank Smythe's sherpas in 1937.
Kang Admi - "Snow Man"
Jo-bran - "Man-beast"
Himalayan wildlife attributed to the Yeti sightings include the Chu-Teh, a Langur monkey living at lower altitudes, the Tibetan Blue Bear, the Himalayan Brown Bear and the Dzu-Teh (commonly known as the Himalayan Red Bear).
The term Yeti is often used to describe various reported creatures:
A large apelike biped (that some suggest could be a Gigantopithecus)
Human-sized bipedal apes (the Almas and the Chinese wildman)
Dwarflike creatures (such as the Orang Pendek).
The term is often used to refer to creatures fitting any of the aforementioned descriptions. For example, the fear liath has been dubbed as the "Scottish Yeti".

The "Abominable Snowman"
The appellation "Abominable Snowman" was not coined until 1921, the same year Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Howard-Bury led the Royal Geographical Society's "Everest Reconnaissance Expedition" which he chronicled in Mount Everest The Reconnaissance, 1921 In the book, Howard-Bury includes an account of crossing the "Lhakpa-la" at 21,000 feet (6400 meter) where he found footprints that he believed "were probably caused by a large 'loping' grey wolf, which in the soft snow formed double tracks rather like a those of a barefooted man". He adds that his Sherpa guides "at once volunteered that the tracks must be that of "The Wild Man of the Snows", to which they gave the name "metoh-kangmi". "Metoh" translates as "man-bear" and "Kang-mi" translates as "snowman".
A bit of confusion exists between Howard-Bury's recitation of the term "metoh-kangmi" and the term used in H.W. Tilman's book Mount Everest, 1938 where Tilman had used the words "metch" (which may not exist in the Tibetan language) and "kangmi" when relating the coining of the term "Abominable Snowman". Further evidence of "metch" being a misnomer is provided by Tibetan language authority Professor David Snellgrove from the School of Oriental Studies in London (ca. 1956), who dismissed the word "metch" as impossible to conjoin the consonants "t-c-h" in the Tibetan language." Documentation suggests that the term "metch-kangmi" is derived from one source (from the year 1921). It has been suggested that "metch" is simply a misspelling of "metoh".
Like the legend itself, the origin of the term "Abominable Snowman" is rather colourful. It began when Mr Henry Newman, a longtime contributor to The Statesman in Calcutta (using the pen name "Kim"), interviewed the porters of the "Everest Reconnaissance expedition" upon their return to Darjeeling. Newman mistranslated the word "metoh" as "filthy" or "dirty", substituting the term "abominable", perhaps out of artistic license. As author H.W. Tilman's recounts, "[Newman] wrote long after in a letter to The Times: The whole story seemed such a joyous creation I sent it to one or two newspapers'".