Naming hurricanes

What's in a Name?

Forecasters began naming hurricanes and tropical storms in order to provide ease of communication between them and the general public in areas regarding forecasts, watches and warnings. By naming hurricanes, there is a reduction in confusion about what storm is being described.

Prior to 1950, hurricanes were assigned names by the year in which they occurred plus a letter from the alphabet (i.e. 1942A, 1942 B, etc.). It then became the trend to give hurricanes human names. At first, it was only girls’ names, but after 1978, they used boys’ and girls’ names alternately.

Experience shows that the use of girls' and boys' names in written and spoken communication is shorter, quicker, and causes fewer mistakes than any other hurricane identification used to date.

Each year, a potential list of names is prepared for the upcoming hurricane season. The list contains a name for each letter of the alphabet. (The letters Q, U, X, Y, Z are not included because there are not many names beginning with those letters.) These lists are recycled every six years and names are replaced when a hurricane name is retired.

The names for the 2007 hurricane season are:
Andrea
Barry
Chantal
Dean
Erin
Felix
Gabrielle
Humberto
Ingrid
Jerry
Karen
Lorenzo
Melissa
Noel
Olga
Pablo
Rebekah
Sebastien
Tanya
Van
Wendy