Something about Hurricanes

The other day while driving Abigail to school we overheard the news on the radio mention the recent tornados in Kansas. Abigail asked a very astute and difficult question. The conversation went something like this:

Abigail: "Why don't they name tornados like they do hurricanes?" Me: "Hmmm; my guess is because there are so many tornados in any given year that it would be really hard to name them all -- plus they usually just call them by the area's they hit; like Topeka, Hayes; hurricanes are huge and hit several states at a time" Abigail: "What was the first hurricane name?" Me: "I don't know -- let me look that up ..."

So, here we are. I've looked it up and am to depart what I've learned. The first people to name hurricanes were the Europeans who lived in the West Indies; naming them after particular saint whose day it was (for instance, there are 14 saints for May 10). Clement Lindley Wragge, a meteorologist from late 1800s, introduced the practice of naming hurricanes -- he named them anything his little heart desired. It wasn't until the 1950s that a formal system of naming came into place -- alphabetical (Greek alphabet, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc) with female names (common English language practice of referring to named inanimate objects such as boats, trains, etc., using the female pronoun "she," names used were exclusively feminine) and different set of names for regions (North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, etc). The first official name, distributed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), was Hurricane Alice. In 1979 they began switching alternate masculine names with female names (after complaints of sexism). Significant and large hurricanes (ones that do major damage or cause many causalities, such as Katrina) have their names are retired. Which name is due up next? Andrea.