Lists of names for hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, the North Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico are created from international library sources and agreed to at meetings of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). And, yes, a hurricane could be named for you in 2000, 2006, and every six years after that. Here's how the process works.

Long ago, many hurricanes - especially in the West Indies - were named after the particular saint's day on which the storm occurred. For example, Hurricane Santa Ana struck Puerto Rico on July 26, 1825. Hurricane San Felipe I and Hurricane San Felipe II both hit Puerto Rico on September 13, the first in 1876 and the second in 1928.

Before the end of the 19th century, Australian meteorologist Clement Wragge began giving women's names to tropical storms. This practice became widespread during World War II when Navy and Air Force meteorologists plotted movements of storms over the wide expanses of the Pacific Ocean. They needed a simple way to refer to different storms, and short names were easier to understand in both written and oral communications than cumbersome latitude-longitude identification methods.