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Six name lists are currently used on a rotating basis. The lists were formed using female names starting in 1955 beginning with Alice. Male names began in 1979 with Bob being the first. Names of particularly deadly or damaging storms are retired. To date, 96 names have been retired. Maybe, names beginning with the letters "Q" "U" "X" "Y" and "Z" aren't used because there are so few names compared to other letters making replacement names difficult to find. They use a supplementary list if there are more than 21 named storms in a year.

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Drawing names out of a hat seems like a lot more fun!