# What will they name the "extra" hurricanes this year?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-they-name-the-extra-hurricanes-this-year/339390>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 10, 2006, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-they-name-the-extra-hurricanes-this-year/339390 "2006-01-10T22:23:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Ty\_Cobb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ee59a6/32.png) [@Ty\_Cobb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ty_Cobb)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-they-name-the-extra-hurricanes-this-year/339390/1 "2006-01-10T22:23:21Z")

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In 2005 year they ran out of regular names and went with Greek letters up to, I think, epsilon.

Since the name list are drawn up several years in advance, I don’t understand why they couldn’t just have started over with the names that were in reserve for 2007, and remade that list at leisure.

But now that they have gone and used Greek letters, are they planning to do that again?  
Isn’t the whole idea of rotating lists to eliminate confusion.

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**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-they-name-the-extra-hurricanes-this-year/339390/2 "2006-01-10T22:37:33Z")

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They’ll use Greek letters again this year if they need to. Those later ones tend to stay in the mid-Atlantic and not become the type of memorable named hurricane that gets retired from the lists.

There are no names in reserve, BTW. There are, IIRC, six full years’ worth of names that start anew each year, and they just go through the cycle every six years unless a major storm means that a name is retired.

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**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-they-name-the-extra-hurricanes-this-year/339390/3 "2006-01-10T23:03:54Z")

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The highest name used was applied to [Tropical Storm Zeta](http://hurricane.accuweather.com/hurricane/storms.asp?partner=accuweather&ocean=atlantic&storm=Zeta), which formed last December. It didn’t do much of anything, mainly just puttered around the Atlantic.

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**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-they-name-the-extra-hurricanes-this-year/339390/4 "2006-01-10T23:46:55Z")

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So, what do they do if they run out of greek letters in some unprecedented stormy season?

I suggest that they should just give each storm after that a cussword for a name.

Hurricane A$$hole, Hurricane Bull$hit, so on so forth 😃

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**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\
**Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-they-name-the-extra-hurricanes-this-year/339390/5 "2006-01-11T00:29:26Z")

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I suppose that in case of major historic-rank storm once you’re in the Greeks, they’d just call it “Beta2006” for the books.