Hurricane comes from the Taino (indigenous people of the Caribbean and Florida) word Hurican, the Carib Indian god of evil. When the Spanish explored the islands they turned it into huracan which is the Spanish word for hurricane today.
From several sources like Geology.com, the National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center, and several news outlets, this is a little history of hurricane names.
Before the 1900s the name of the Saint’s Day on which the hurricane occurred from the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar was commonly used. And if there were more than one on the same day in different years they would be named for example “Hurricane San Felipe the first” and “Hurricane San Felipe the second. “
An Australian meteorologist began giving women’s names to tropical storms by the end of the 19th century. Hurricanes used to be known by the latitude/longitude of the location where the storm originated but this became impractical.
By WWII, Navy and Air Force meteorologists named these systems after girlfriends and wives as an easy method to keep track of multiple storms. To increase hurricane awareness in 1953 the U.S. Weather Bureau officially started using women's names only.
1979 was the first introduction to men's names but excluded names beginning with Q,U,X,Y, or Z.
Names are now chosen by the World Meteorological Organization and have different systems for different ocean regions. For the Atlantic system, there are six lists of names that rotate every six years. But some names are retired due to the nature of its devastation and replaced with a new name.
Comments