in case you were wondering...

north atlantic ocean storms are named by the u.s. national hurricane center. there have been six lists of names in use since 1979. the lists make use of names from both sexes. they are in alphabetical order and lists are recycled after six years, although the names of notable hurricanes are retired by the WMO on request. all letters of the alphabet are used except Q, U, X, Y and Z.

gender alternates both between adjacent names in a list (a male name is followed by a female one and vice versa) and between initial names between lists (if one year's list starts with a female name, the next year's list begins with a male one and vice versa).