There are 26 letters in the alphabet but only 21 are set aside each year for potential tropical storm and hurricane names in areas tracked by the National Hurricane Center.

The names for the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season are Andrea, Barry, Chantal, Dexter, Erin, Fernand, Gabrielle, Humberto, Imelda, Jerry, Karen, Lorenzo, Melissa, Nestor, Olga, Pablo, Rebekah, Sebastien, Tanya, Van and Wendy.

There are no names for Q, U, X, Y and Z, and each of the 21 names alternate from female to male. This year starts with a female name and next year will begin with a male name.

If some of this year’s names seem familiar, it’s because each year’s names are decided six years out by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization. If a storm name isn’t retired after a season it recycles.

This year, for instance, the WMO Hurricane Committee retired Beryl, Helene and Milton from its Atlantic basin name list “because of the death and destruction these storms caused in 2024,” according to a WMO press release. They were replaced by Brianna, Holly and Miguel — but those won’t be used until 2030.

Hurricane Debby, though, which struck Florida’s Big Bend in August, remains on the potential storm names list for 2030. The storm was blamed for 12 deaths but was nowhere near as destructive as Helene or Milton.

So a good chunk of the storm names used in 2019 are getting reused this year. Andrea, for instance, had been used in 2019, 2013 and 2007.

The only new name in 2025 is Dexter, which replaced Dorian, a deadly and destructive Category 5 hurricane that wreaked havoc in the Bahamas in 2019.

If there are more than 21 named storms, WMO initiated a supplemental list first available in 2021 for new storm names. They are Adria, Braylen, Caridad, Deshawn, Emery, Foster, Gemma, Heath, Isla, Jacobus, Kenzie, Lucio, Makayla, Nolan, Orlanda, Pax, Ronin, Sophie, Tayshaun, Viviana and Will.

Before 2021, if there were more than 21 named storms in a year it would take on a letter from the Greek alphabet for its name: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon and so forth.

Only twice has NHC utilized the spillover list. First in 2005 when it used six letters of the Greek alphabet, and again in 2020 when it required nine letters including Zeta, Eta, Theta and Iota. That was deemed potentially confusing and dangerous and thus begat the new augmented naming system.

The NHC began naming storms in 1963.

In addition to 2019’s Dorian and last year’s Beryl, Helene and Milton, the other retired storm names over the last decade are 2022’s Fiona and Ian; 2021’s Ida; 2020’s Laura, Eta and Iota; 2018’s Florence and Michael; 2017’s Harvey, Irma, Maria and Nate; 2016’s Matthew; and Otto and 2015’s Erika and Joaquin.

Other storms that have struck Florida whose names were retired include 2005’s Dennis, Katrina and Wilma; 2004’s Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne; 1995’s Opal; and 1992’s Andrew.