Hurricanes get their names from pre-approved, rotating lists managed by international weather agencies, mainly under the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

How naming works

  • Tropical storms (with sustained winds of at least about 39 mph) get a name once they reach that strength; if they later become hurricanes, they keep the same name.
  • For the Atlantic and eastern Pacific, there are several lists of names prepared in advance and used in strict alphabetical order each season (A, B, C, etc., skipping some letters like Q, U, X, Y, Z).
  • These lists alternate male and female names and are designed to be short, easy to pronounce, and familiar to people in the region.
  • The lists are recycled every six years (for example, the 2019 Atlantic list is reused in 2025), unless specific names are removed.

Who chooses the names?

  • The WMO coordinates regional committees made up of national meteorological services (such as the U.S. National Hurricane Center).
  • These committees propose, debate, and approve the lists, making sure names work across the languages and cultures in the affected basins (for the Atlantic, that includes English, Spanish, and French).
  • Once approved, the lists are published and followed each season by forecasting centers and the media.

Why hurricanes are named

  • Using names instead of technical identifiers (like latitude/longitude) makes it much easier for the public and media to track storms and follow warnings accurately.
  • Naming reduces confusion when there are multiple storms at once, especially in news reports, emergency alerts, and international coordination.
  • Before modern naming, storms might be identified by the year, a place, or even a saintā€™s day, which became confusing as record-keeping and communication expanded.

A simple way to think of it: naming a hurricane is like giving a ā€œheadlineā€ to a complex, evolving weather event so everyone talks about the same thing clearly and quickly.

What happens to very bad storms?

  • If a storm is especially deadly or destructive , its name can be retired , meaning it will never be used again out of sensitivity to affected communities.
  • Famous examples include Hurricane Katrina (2005) and Super Typhoon Haiyan (2013), whose names were permanently removed and replaced on future lists.
  • When a name is retired, the WMO committee selects a new name starting with the same letter and fitting the same regional and language patterns.

Fun bit of history and edge cases

  • In the early 1950s, the U.S. briefly tried naming storms with the phonetic alphabet (Able, Baker, Charlie) before switching to female names only in 1953.
  • The current mixed maleā€“female naming system began in 1979 and has been used since in the Atlantic.
  • In hyper-active seasons when all 21 names were used (like 2005 and 2020), extra storms used the Greek alphabet, although this system has since been reconsidered due to confusion.

TL;DR: Hurricanes get their names from carefully prepared, six-year rotating lists created by international meteorological committees, designed to be short, familiar, and culturally appropriate so that warnings and news about dangerous storms are as clear and memorable as possible.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.