The Coriolis effect is named after Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis, a French engineer and mathematician. He was the first to describe the phenomenon in 1835, while studying the flow of water in rotating systems. However, it's important to note that:

* Coriolis himself didn't discover the force. The effect is a consequence of the Earth's rotation and was present long before Coriolis studied it.

* Other scientists had observed the phenomenon before Coriolis. For example, the Italian physicist Giovanni Battista Riccioli observed the effect on the swing of a pendulum in the 17th century.

Therefore, while Coriolis is credited with formalizing the mathematical description of the effect, he wasn't the first to observe it.