Cleveland Kent Evans wrote:Imelda is usually pronounced as "ih-MELL-duh" in English, accent on the second syllable. Though perhaps the Weather Bureau will want a more Spanish pronunciation for this where the first syllable would come out more like "ee".
I guess if you were old enough you'd know about Imelda Marcos and so remember how to pronounce it. There's also the English actress Imelda Staunton who received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination in 2004 for "Vera Drake" and also played Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter films:
http://www.biography.com/#!/people/imel ... s-21062601
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001767/
It is rather unlucky for the Weather Bureau that they have had to retire so many "I" names. Of the letters in the first half of the alphabet which are more likely to get retired, "I" is the one with the fewest possible replacements if you limit yourself to names which would be readily recognizable. Ivy and Isabella are just about the only common female "I" names left that haven't been used, and of course the problem with Isabella is that Isabel has already been on the list. Although we do have Paulette and Paula both on the Atlantic lists at the moment, which aren't quite as close as Isabel and Isabella but are getting there.
Frederic and Fred not only both made the list (Fred after Frederic was retired, with Fabian separating the two), but I looked up and on the same list as well - ironically, the same list as Isabel (List 1). That would really place precedent in using another derivative on List 1. That assumes Ida gets retired after 2015...
I remember in the process of retiring Sandy last year, they considered Sheri as a top replacement - when Shary already sits on the 2016 list. (They picked Sara in the end as the replacement.)
