HOUSTON – Ever wonder where hurricane and tropical storm systems get their name or if your name could make the cut?
My name is Daji and it is very unlikely that my name would land on a hurricane list. The names are chosen by World Meteorological Organization and represent the diverse cultures in the Atlantic basin region, including American, French, Latin, Dutch, and English names.
However, this wasn’t always the standard, 1979 was the first year that the World Meteorological Organization started alternating female and male names after complaints about inequality. In the 1950s, storm names were named all female names.
In the 1940s the weather agency proposed using the military phonetic alphabet but there simply wasn’t enough names to continue with the system.
Names here to stay , while others have to go:
Sometimes storm names might ring a bell and that’s because they are on a loop. There are 6 alphabetic lists with 21 names each, used every year. They naming lists are recycled every 6 years, so 2026’s list of names won’t show back up till 2032.
It is also important to know that storms that broke records with costly damage or high death rates, are retired - so for example, we will never see the names beryl, Ike, or Allison appear on a hurricane naming lists again because they’ve been retired.
This year there is a new L named storm, Leah, it replaced Laura. Laura retired in 2020 after being the strongest hurricane to hit southwest Louisiana.