Photo of Hurricane Ike (September 2008), from NASA's Marshall Space Center, on flickr
Have you ever wondered how they come up with the names for hurricanes? I have not been able to find an explanation of exactly how the list of names is picked, but the names do have to be short and easily spelled and pronounced. They are in alphabetical order and if there are more than 26 storms of hurricane intensity, the Greek alphabet comes to the rescue. Normally, hurricane names repeat every seven years. When a hurricane is particularly destructive, its name is retired: you won’t see any more Ikes or Katrinas.
When the storms were first given names, in 1953, hurricanes all had female names, but since 1979 there have been equal numbers of male and female names.
