How do they choose the names for hurricanes?

Question

How do they choose the names for hurricanes?

Answer 1

They are chosen by the World Meteorological Association. For centuries they were names after the saints whose days they appeared on.  Then they were named in alphabetical order, for women if they originated north of the equator, for men if south of the equator (though sometimes they'd cross the equator).  Since 1979 they are named alternately after men and women.

When a hurricane causes great damage, its name is retired, Agnes or Katrina.  Otherwise the same names are used again every six years.

Answer 2

They choose them by boys or girl's names.It started a while ago.

They do it alphbetially. So last time was Katrina, next is Gustav for G.

Answer 3

Experience shows that the use of short, distinctive given names in written as well as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error than the older more cumbersome latitude-longitude identification methods. These advantages are especially important in exchanging detailed storm information between hundreds of widely scattered stations, coastal bases, and ships at sea.

Since 1953, Atlantic tropical storms have been named from lists originated by the National Hurricane Center. They are now maintained and updated by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization. The original name lists featured only women's names. In 1979, men's names were introduced and they alternate with the women's names. Six lists are used in rotation. Thus, the 2008 list will be used again in 2014. Here is more information about the history of naming hurricanes.

The only time that there is a change in the list is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for reasons of sensitivity. If that occurs, then at an annual meeting by the WMO committee (called primarily to discuss many other issues) the offending name is stricken from the list and another name is selected to replace it.

Several names have been changed since the lists were created. For example, on the 2007 list (which will be used again in 2013), Dorian has replaced Dean, Fernand has replaced Felix, and Nestor has replaced Noel. Here is more information about retired hurricane names.

In the event that more than 21 named tropical cyclones occur in the Atlantic basin in a season, additional storms will take names from the Greek alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and so on. If a storm forms in the off-season, it will take the next name in the list based on the current calendar date. For example, if a tropical cyclone formed on December 28th, it would take the name from the previous season's list of names. If a storm formed in February, it would be named from the subsequent season's list of names.

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