As is often the case with scientific discoveries, the Higgs boson particle was actually the subject of concurrent research by multiple scientists. io9 points out that in 1964, when Peter Higgs published his famous paper, at least five other scientists were on the same track, some of whom believed they had better scientific grounds for postulating the particle's existence. Now that the particle's name has been cemented in the public's consciousness, it's unlikely that it will get renamed to something more generic like the "scalar boson," but it is unique in the world of physics for being named after a person instead of a property. Check out io9 to follow the rest of the story.