Igor, Otto, Dolly, and Fifi are just a few memorable hurricane names. While they may seem arbitrary, the World Meteorological Organization is responsible for carefully selecting names for all major storms around the world. The WMO keeps six lists of 21 male and female names that are rotated and recycled every six years. There are separate lists in place for storms forming in the North Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and Indian Ocean. Because the names are recycled, it’s possible to have two storms with the same name in just one decade. When a storm causes signifigant damage or loss of life, the WMO may deem it inappropriate to be used again, in which case it is retired, as was the case with names Harvey and Katrina. The selected names are intentionally concise, with only a very small number with more than two or three syllables. No Q, U, X, Y or Z names are used to label storms anymore, though in 1958 the names Udele, Virgy, Xrae, Yurith, and Zorna somehow made the the cut. According to NOAA, “Experience shows that the use of short, distinctive names in written as well as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error than the older, more cumbersome latitude-longitude identification methods".
