How do they come up with the names given to hurricanes? Are they always female names?
“Maria” the storm from George R. Stewart’s 1941 novel, “Storm” inspired the practice of naming hurricanes after people. The storms are named alphabetically, with the first storm of the year earning a name beginning with ‘A’. The letters Q, U, X, Y, and Z are not included because there are so few names that begin with those letters. In 1978, the practice of using only female names was replaced with the current system of using male and female names on an alternate basis. According to the National Hurricane Center, hurricanes were once named for the particular saint’s day on which the hurricane occurred. For example, “Hurricane San Felipe” struck Puerto Rico on Sept. 13, 1876. When another storm struck Puerto Rico on the same day 52 years later, it was named “Hurricane San Felipe the Second.” This practice was later replaced with latitude- longitude positions, but that practice proved error-ridden and confusing. Since 1953, hurricanes of the Caribbean and Atlantic Ocean have been named by
