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Not so much a question here, but an interesting etymological discovery I made while doing research on hurricanes and following some links. Hopefully, it will be news to at least some forum members.
There was a popular book written in 1941 called Storm, by author George Rippey Stewart. In it, he tells about a disastrous storm to which he assigns the moniker "Maria." In the 50s, the popular song They Call the Wind Maria was introduced in a Broadway musical, taking the name from Stewart's book. Later in the 50s, meteorologists also picked up on this. They had been using any number of systems, including the phonetic alphabet, to name storms. That was when they adopted the practice of giving hurricanes women's names.
That worked well until the 70s when N.O.W. (disliking the association) pushed for the inclusion of men's names. And so it goes.
The old riddle "Why do they gives hurricanes women's names?" (Answer: Because if they used men's names, then they'd be himicanes.) earned its share of groans I'm sure. Seems fitting that groaner has now become extinct.
The naming of winter storms and blizzards is, I suspect, just a media thing. Same as how they refer to their talking-head weather people as meteorologists, when very few of them actually have any formal training. Most of the "real" meteorologists I know have a great face for radio (as they say).
From my research on hurricanes, typhoons, etc., there are different naming conventions for each, depending on the country of the government bureau responsible for the naming. Even Indian Ocean cyclones (the generic term) use a different naming convention.
But to my knowledge, nobody "officially" names mere storms or blizzards. Watch for the media to start naming tornadoes next. 
, e.g. "2011 Joplin tornado".Agreed. But that's not quite the same thing. You'll never hear "Tornado Joplin" used as a formal name for it. That's just where it hit. Kinda' like the 1889 Johnstown flood will never be called "Flood Johnstown," nor will the 2004 Indonesian tsunami be called "Tsunami Sumatra" (though that does have a nice ring to it).
It is fascinating to me that the practice is so recent. With traditions it is difficult to discern how long they have been around before you were first exposed to them. Without giving too much away, my first exposure to named hurricanes must have been shortly after the practice began. As a result, I assumed it was much, much longer established than it is in fact.
One strange fact is that for 1950, I find a record for Hurricane Able -- which I would take as a male name, variant spelling. There was also a Hurricane Charlie and a Hurricane George. That these hurricanes have male names is actually a coincidence. Does it help to know that there were hurricanes (or tropical storms) of the same names also in 1951 and 1952? These hurricane names actually come from the "phonetic alphabet" used by the Army and Navy during that era (1941-1956), as Heimhenge outlines above. In reality, the highest they ever got using this system was Hurricane Love (1950), but that year there was also a Tropical Storm Mike. The system of women's names appears to come in for the 1953 season.
A Able
B Baker
C Charlie
D Dog
E Easy
F Fox
G George
H How
I Item
J Jig
K King
L Love
M Mike
N Nan
O Oboe
P Peter
Q Queen
R Roger
S Sail/Sugar
T Tare
U Uncle
V Victor
W William
X X-ray
Y Yoke
Z Zebra
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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