EPAC/CPAC Naming

[ClarCari]

Was really curious to start a thread on everyones opinions on the naming for the Eastern Pacific.

To me the names are..a little questionable. Theres so many “english” sounding names (Amanda, Cristina, Erick, Paul, Tina, etc.) for a basin that hardly if even ever, impacts California, and Hawaii has their own names in CPAC so they don’t even need other names.

The Atlantic names always made sense since they chose names in respect to all Atlantic countries’ spoken languages, but EPAC names idk, either alot of those names are actually common in Central America or maybe I’m completely missing the point WMO tried to make

[Hammy]

Was really curious to start a thread on everyones opinions on the naming for the Eastern Pacific.

To me the names are..a little questionable. Theres so many “english” sounding names (Amanda, Cristina, Erick, Paul, Tina, etc.) for a basin that hardly if even ever, impacts California, and Hawaii has their own names in CPAC so they don’t even need other names.

The Atlantic names always made sense since they chose names in respect to all Atlantic countries’ spoken languages, but EPAC names idk, either alot of those names are actually common in Central America or maybe I’m completely missing the point WMO tried to make

I believe Amanda, Cristina (in that particular spelling, and Tina are also Spanish names, though I do agree there is a strangely high number of English and French language names on a list for storms that primarily affect Latin America.

[Cleveland Kent Evans]

The whole idea of giving tropical storms names originated in the USA. I am not sure how much whoever was in charge of weather predictions in Mexico cared about this back in 1978 when the lists we have now were created.

And people in Mexico would be very familiar with English and French names -- the rest of the world, including Canada and Mexico, knows much more about the culture of the USA than Americans know about theirs.

Most importantly, there are lots of names which might not look "Spanish" to English speakers who don't have a lot of contact with Latin America, but which have become quite popular as baby names in Latin America. "Ivette", for instance, may look French to a lot of people in the USA but it is by usage actually a Latin American name. If you Google it almost all the women named Ivette presently have Spanish surnames.

It does seem that someone in Mexico has been involved in choosing replacement names the last couple of decades in the rare instances where EPAC names have been replaced. Not only Ivette, but Karina and Odalys are names which are not traditionally "Spanish" but which are fairly common as given names in Mexico today.

[ClarCari]

The whole idea of giving tropical storms names originated in the USA. I am not sure how much whoever was in charge of weather predictions in Mexico cared about this back in 1978 when the lists we have now were created.

And people in Mexico would be very familiar with English and French names -- the rest of the world, including Canada and Mexico, knows much more about the culture of the USA than Americans know about theirs.

Most importantly, there are lots of names which might not look "Spanish" to English speakers who don't have a lot of contact with Latin America, but which have become quite popular as baby names in Latin America. "Ivette", for instance, may look French to a lot of people in the USA but it is by usage actually a Latin American name. If you Google it almost all the women named Ivette presently have Spanish surnames.

It does seem that someone in Mexico has been involved in choosing replacement names the last couple of decades in the rare instances where EPAC names have been replaced. Not only Ivette, but Karina and Odalys are names which are not traditionally "Spanish" but which are fairly common as given names in Mexico today.

I figured there might have been a slight bias since the U.S. started the naming trend. I thought too that maybe some names really are considered more common in Latin countries so that’s neat to know!

Still some of these names kinda seem odd for the basin,.. aaatttt least that’s how I feel since some of them look like they might be better suited as replacement names for Atlantic storms given that they retire way more often than the EPAC

I’m the minority who loved the name Isaias but I could see how that name wouldn’t cause the same confusion in pronunciation in the Eastern Pacific than it did in the Atlantic

[ClarCari]

Wanted to try and revive this thread since..hey..we’re in off season so why not.

Does anyone think there should be some revision to the Pacific names or heck does anyone think the CPAC should merge into the EPAC as a whole and mix in Hawaiian names.

I mean the majority of CPAC activity is storms moving west from the EPAC so making it a separate TC meteorological region is in my opinion pointless and not practical.

Plus I still think some of the names in the EPAC don’t fit the region they are in which are basically hispanic nations. They may be better served as future replacement names in the Atlantic which retires names far more often.

[NorthieStangl]

Personally, I don't think EPAC and CPAC should have separate lists of names, especially since storms rarely form in CPAC itself, and it took over 3 decades for the first Hawaiian name - Akoni - to finally get used for the second time.

The current EPAC lists dated way back to 1978 - at a time that Mexico and the Central American countries were still severely underdeveloped, so that would explain why the names are unusually "white"-sounding.

With the retirement issues with the Greek names being raised, I think it's time for an overhauling of name lists in both EPAC and ATL anyway.

[Astromanía]

I would love to see more spanish names in this basin, it makes sense if we count the areas affected by tropical cyclones here, but yeah many english names are getting more common here in Mexico and Central America with the time so you can also expect english names on the list

[ClarCari]

So with the EPAC now having an additional list instead of using the greeks that now will never happen, I must ask....what is the point?

As long as the basin is split in two, the “EPAC” has never surpassed it’s list of names and reached the end only once, so really only the first two names of the new auxiliary list I could see ever being used.

Maybe this new auxiliary list would make sense if the WMO finally merged the Central and East Pacific into an actual “East Pacific” basin instead of this separated nonsense.

This new list only highlights the issue with having these basins being separated; the Central Pacific is by far the least active official “basin” in the world that receives the majority of it’s Tropical Cyclone Energy from the “EPAC” over time.

It’s seriously time for a merge of these two “basins”!

[Astromanía]

So with the EPAC now having an additional list instead of using the greeks that now will never happen, I must ask....what is the point?

As long as the basin is split in two, the “EPAC” has never surpassed it’s list of names and reached the end only once, so really only the first two names of the new auxiliary list I could see ever being used.

Maybe this new auxiliary list would make sense if the WMO finally merged the Central and East Pacific into an actual “East Pacific” basin instead of this separated nonsense.

This new list only highlights the issue with having these basins being separated; the Central Pacific is by far the least active official “basin” in the world that receives the majority of it’s Tropical Cyclone Energy from the “EPAC” over time.

It’s seriously time for a merge of these two “basins”!

I agree