Atlantic Hurricane Names

Updated February 12, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

Because hurricanes often occur at the same time, officials assign short, distinctive names to the storms to avoid confusion among weather stations, coastal bases, and ships at sea. Since 1953, Atlantic tropical storms have been named from lists created by the National Hurricane Center and now maintained and updated by the World Meteorological Organization. The lists featured only women's names until 1979, when men's and women's names were alternated. Six lists are used in rotation. Thus, the 2008 list will be used again in 2014. If all the names in a season's list have been used, later storms are named for Greek letters, in alphabetical order. (This has happened only once, in 2005.) A storm is given a name once its winds reach a speed of 40 mph. In addition to the Atlantic list of names, there are ten other lists corresponding to other storm-prone regions of the world.