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How Are Typhoons and Hurricanes Named? 颱風是如何命名的?

精英翻譯社轉自: https://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0058/342550/web/

Do the names Dennis, Nina, and Maria sound scary to you? Well, they should! All three are the names of deadly typhoons or hurricanes. But why do these scary storms have such safe-sounding names? The answer can be either complicated or simple, depending on where the storm occurs.

你覺得丹尼斯、妮娜和瑪莉亞這些名字聽起來嚇人嗎？嗯，是應該要！這三個名字都是致命颱風或颶風的名字。但為什麼這些可怕的風暴有聽起來如此安全的名字呢？答案可以複雜，也可以簡單，取決於風暴發生的地點。

The idea of naming storms after people seems to have originated in the 1890s, when an Australian meteorologist began naming storms after politicians he didn’t like and women. In the 1940s, as meteorologists continued to name storms after their girlfriends or wives, this practice became a system. They thought women’s names were easier to transmit over the radio than names based on a storm’s location. 

以人名來替風暴命名的想法似乎源自一八九○年代，當時一位澳洲的氣象學家開始以他不喜歡的政治人物和女性來替風暴命名。一九四○年代，因為氣象學家繼續以他們的女友或妻子的名字來為風暴命名，這項慣常作法就變成一套系統。他們認為女性的名字比根據風暴位置的名字更容易透過廣播傳播出去。

Around a decade later, the United States’ National Weather Service created a list of female names to use for storms, adding male names to the list later on. Now, America uses a system of six alphabetical lists, each with 21 names. Names starting with q, u, x, y, and z aren’t included because they’re uncommon in English. Every year, a different list is used, with the cycle repeating itself every six years. The lists change only if there’s a particularly bad storm, which is why you won’t be seeing another Hurricane Katrina or Sandy.

大約十年後，美國國家氣象局建立了一份女性名字的清單來替風暴命名，之後在名單上加入了男性的名字。現在，美國使用一套有六組按照字母排序的表單系統，每一組都有二十一個名字。以q、u、x、y和z起始的名字不包含在內，因為在英語中很少見。每年會使用不同的表單，每六年會重複循環一次。只有在有特別嚴重的風暴時名單才會修改，這就是為什麼你不會再看見另一個卡崔娜或珊迪颶風。