What's in a name...?

I don't know about you, but I've always wondered how they name tropical storms and hurricanes.

This from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

Military weather forecasters began giving women's names to significant storms during WWII, then in 1950 the World Meteorological Organization agreed to an alphabetical naming system, using the military's radio code.

The first named Atlantic hurricane was Able in 1950.

Officials soon realized the naming convention would cause problems in the history books if more than one powerful Hurricane Able made landfall.

So, in 1953 the organization adopted a rotating series of women's names, planning to retire names of significant storms.

Feminists urged the WMO to add men's names, which was done in 1979. The boy-girl-boy-girl naming convention evolved to include French and Spanish names in the Atlantic system, reflecting the languages of the nations affected by Caribbean hurricanes.

Twenty-one names are reserved each year (the letters q, u, x, y and z are not used), and the names are recycled every six years, minus those retired. When a name is retired, the World Meteorological Organization chooses a new name to replace it.