Why do they name hurricanes after girls?

Answer 1

The Philippines tropical storm names are different that than those of the United States. Their names are compiled in a pre-existing list that is rotated annually and repeated every four years. The lists consist of both male and female names that fall in alphabetical order. A list of names can be found from the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration.

Answer 2

They stopped giving hurricanes exclusively female names some years ago. They now alternate between male and female names... for example, the current Hurricane Irene has been compared to both Bob and Andrew.
Since 1979, storms and hurricanes have had both male and female names.

Answer 3

The first formalized system of naming storms was created near the end of the 19th century by Australian meteorologist Clement Wragge, who started naming storms after letters of the Greek alphabet. Later he changed to using the names from Greek and Roman mythology, and later still to common feminine names. U.S. militarymeteorologists picked up the convention during World War II, but at the end of the war, the system that became formalized was one which used the military's phonetic alphabet (Able, Baker, Charlie, etc.). In 1953 the Weather Service switched over to feminine names; the very first was Tropical Storm Alice. In 1978, due to sexist overtones (male meteorologists referring to the stormy personalities of women they knew), male names began alternating with female ones in the Eastern North Pacific, and in 1979 the practice was extended to the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico region

Answer 4

Typhoons and hurricanes used to be named only for women; the joke was the women are very unpredictable, and so are tropical storms.

Womens' groups and feminists from the early 1960's started to complain that assigning womens' names to destructive storms was an insult, so in 1979 the Weather Bureau began alternating masculine and feminine names for tropical storms.

Answer 5

The naming of typhoons comes from a set list that is rotated every six years. The names were decided upon by the National Hurricane Center and include a mix of both boy and girl names.

Answer 6

It's fairer to alternate between boys and girls names, as happens now.

Answer 7

They are not all female names. Typhoons are named after animals, flowers, astrological signs and (male and female) personal names.