The History of Hurricane Names: Why These Powerful And Notable Tropical Systems Get Names

The history of naming hurricanes spans decades and is expansive in nature.

There is quite a bit of criteria when it comes to naming hurricanes, as these storms, should they be devastating, will be discussed for generations.

Reason To Name Hurricanes

As we approach another season, predictions are made for the year, and the list of names is released. But have you ever wondered why these storms get names?

Well, storms actually used to be identified by their latitude and their longitude. Can you imagine weather stations trying to communicate about the latest on the second of three ongoing storms? They would have to keep track of an actively changing set of numbers. It would be very easy to have errors and false rumors from those reporting on the storm as well.

Using short, individualized names is easier than trying to tell someone about a storm by its coordinates.

I am inclined to agree.

History Of Named Storms

This history is expansive, so let’s start at the very beginning.

For hundreds of years, hurricanes in the West Indies were named after saints. This was documented in the book “Hurricanes” by Ivan R. Tannehill. One of his examples was “San Felipe” (the first) and “San Felipe” (the second), which both hit Puerto Rico on Sept. 13, one in 1876 and the other in 1928.

The powers that be then briefly tried to switch to the phonetic alphabet, but it was too confusing. In 1953, they switched to female names for storms.

The use of only women’s names didn’t last long either. They started using both men’s and women’s names in 1979.

Retired Names Since 1954

In the Atlantic Basin, a list of names is created for each year in a six-year period, and then this list of names starts over.

The latest storm to get retired was Hurricane Melissa in 2025, which was actually the 100th named storm to be retired.

(MORE: The 100 Retired Hurricane Names | Melissa’s Retirement)

So why do names get retired?

The reason is that a storm is so deadly or destructive that it would be insensitive to those who were impacted by the storm. Imagine if the name Katrina were used on a weak tropical storm out in the middle of the basin.

Each year, the committee meets to discuss whether any name should be retired. In this meeting, they also discuss the replacement name.

However, there is an interesting exception. Some names are changed for no real reason. Take the year 1966. The name “Fern” was replaced with “Frieda,” and they didn’t give a reason for the change.

The above chart shows how many named storms have been retired, but note that there have been significantly higher numbers of powerful storms. They just didn’t get names due to the naming becoming established in 1950. Note that the letter “I” is the most retired name, which makes sense as the “I” named storm often occurs around peak hurricane season.

(MORE: Retired 'I' Named Storms)

Rob Shackelford is a meteorologist and climate scientist at weather.com. He received his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Georgia studying meteorology and experimenting with alternative hurricane forecasting tools.