Among the most potent and destructive of nature's forces, hurricanes can wreak havoc over a large area and take a tremendous toll in human life. Because their effects are so severe and so spread out, it's vital for both the public and meteorologists to have good ways of talking about these storms, especially when they are approaching land. One way of ensuring good communication is through the naming of the storms. But how exactly does one go about bestowing a name upon a hurricane? This paper will explore that question and a few others that are closely related to it.

Storms have been given names since ancient times, when sailors would designate storms with monikers for saints or other important figures, using these names for ease of navigation and communication. The contemporary system of naming hurricanes, however, is a product of the 20th century. In the early part of that century, meteorologists adopted a system that used names derived from the phonetic alphabet or the names of the places where storms made landfall. Yet this method proved increasingly unwieldy and often nonsense, especially when the number of storms rose.

The United States National Weather Service formalized the practice of naming hurricanes in 1953. The office named the first storm to earn a nomenclature in 'Helen' a few weeks later on August 4. Helen, 1953's Tempest-in-Chief, whipped up the waters of the Gulf of Mexico into a Category 3 storm before making landfall in Texas. Mother Nature's beautiful but terrible creation would go on to claim 80 lives and cause $154.5 million (that's equivalent to $1.38 billion in today's dollars) in damages along the Texas coastline and farther north.

Hurricane names are not chosen haphazardly but rather through a definite set of rules established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). For the Atlantic basin, which in 2005 was responsible for 60 percent of hurricane-related damages, the WMO preselects a list of names that are to be used in any given year, with tropical storm names changing pace from hurricane to hurricane (in 2005, for instance, the 7th named storm used a different name from the one that would have been used had the next storm in line come along). The pesky fact that storms cross from one ocean to another means that the Pacific, too, has to pay attention to what’s going on in the Atlantic, ensuring that both basins use relevant names that are not too similar to one another.

When a hurricane takes shape, it is given the next name that is up for grabs on the list. If a storm is super deadly or costs a ton of money, its name often doesn't get used again, just out of respect for the dead and also to avoid any possible confusion in the coming years. So, in the case of extremely powerful tropical storms that appear on lists put together by the World Meteorological Organization, names like "Katrina" (which hit in 2005) and "Sandy" (which hit in 2012) have been pulled from the roster, partly to honor the communities hit hard by those particular storms.

Hurricane nomenclature is not simply a matter of calling a storm by its rightful name. It is about giving a storm its due weight in terms of public relations and, by extension, public safety. A named storm is a better news story than an unnamed storm; it is more likely to rise above the din of everyday life. A human name also has a way of sticking in the memory that a code number or the name of a scientific figure does not. When it comes to the public safety worth of a hurricane, the first and most important thing is that people know about it. If people do not know about it, they cannot possibly be safe from it.

To sum up, calling hurricanes by name is a long-standing practice that has evolved over time to improve the way we interact with and understand these powerful storms. You might think that the practice of hurricane naming is a superficial means of dealing with a potent natural disaster, but it's actually a public efficiency tool. When it comes to threats to life and property, we need to embrace any and all reliable means of cutting through confusion and improving effectiveness. The way we select names, the way we communicate with the public about the nature and intent of the name, and the way we honor the memory of past storms, represents a path to efficiency that just might save lives.