There are six alphabetical lists of names that are rotated through every six years, so the names that are used in 2024 will be used again in 2030. The last time this list was used was in 2018.

The names are given out in alphabetical order, and each new storm gets the next name on the list. There are no Q, U, X, Y, or Z names because of the lack of names that begin with those letters.

By 1953, the U.S. government began to use an alphabetical list of women’s names to keep track of tropical storms in the Atlantic basin (the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean).