When Do Storms Get Named, and Where Do the Names Come From?

Since 2015, storms affecting Ireland and the UK have been named through a programme run jointly by Met Éireann, the UK Met Office, and the Dutch meteorological service KNMI.

A storm is given a name when forecasters expect it to cause medium or high impacts in at least one of the partner countries. Naming storms makes warnings easier to communicate and easier for people to follow in forecasts and news reports.

The storm season runs from 1 September to 31 August, covering the period when Atlantic windstorms most often affect northwest Europe.

Each year the meteorological agencies agree a list of names before the season begins. Many of these come from public submissions, which are collected over a short window each year through the Met Éireann website.

Sometimes the names carry a story. Fionnuala, for example, was submitted as the name of someone’s daughter, described as a “good strong name — what you’d expect from a storm”. Gerard was nominated multiple times by friends and family of a man undergoing cancer treatment who had a fascination with extreme weather. Met Éireann publishes the reasoning behind many of the names here.

You may also notice that some letters never appear. Q, U, X, Y and Z are skipped, in line with the naming convention used for Atlantic hurricanes. Hurricane names come from six rotating lists of 21 names, maintained by the World Meteorological Organization and used by the U.S. National Hurricane Center. A different list is used each year and repeats after six years, unless a storm is so destructive that its name is retired and replaced. Storm Katrina (2005) is a well-known example of a retired name.

Keeping the conventions broadly aligned matters because storms sometimes cross between the Atlantic and Europe. When that happens, the existing name is kept. Hurricane Ophelia (2017), for example, formed in the Atlantic and was named by the U.S. National Hurricane Center before later affecting Ireland as an extratropical cyclone.

Public submissions usually open for about a week in late June. In 2025, entries were accepted from 23 June to 1 July, and Met Éireann reported 10,696 name suggestions from 4,137 people, with up to three submissions allowed per person. I was one of them, and yes, I may have submitted my own name. With three chances allowed per person, it seems only fair to try again next year.