How Does the World Name Typhoons?
Early in August, typhoon Khanun struck the Korean peninsula and brought heavy rain to some areas.
While watching news updates on big storms like this one, you may wonder how typhoons get their names.
The practice of giving human names to typhoons probably began in the 1890s.
At that time, the Australian weather expert Clement Wragge named storms after people he disliked.
Then, in 2000, the UN’s global weather service started today’s system of using names submitted by countries around the world.
Storms over the Atlantic Ocean, known as hurricanes, receive men’s and women’s names in alphabetical order.
Storms over the Pacific Ocean, known as typhoons, are arranged alphabetically by the name of the contributing country.
For example, the name for the 2023 season’s first typhoon came from Cambodia, and the second storm’s name came from Macao.
Storm names can be reused, but the names of especially destructive typhoons are never used again.