Cleveland Kent Evans wrote:fasterdisaster wrote:Cleveland Kent Evans wrote:
They could do Ishmael, but that might be too close anyways.
I really like the sound of Hurricane Icarus though. Ichabod is probably the only name on that list before it starts getting either obscure or into mythology, maybe Inigo would work too. I think they're going to eventually, before the end of our lifetimes, start 'unretiring' some names.
At this point I see no reason for them to "unretire" names. What is an "obscure" name varies by culture and generation. Neither Irving nor Ira would be thought unusual at all by most people over 50 in the USA. Ichabod only is "unobscure" to Americans because of the fictional character of Ichabod Crane. It would be very obscure in Latin America. Many of the names on the above list which seem obscure to you are not necessarily so in Latin America. And in modern times given names for humans in English, French, and Spanish speaking cultures are becoming more varied all the time. Ian would have seemed very obscure to most people in the USA a couple of generations ago, but now we are all familiar with it.
I know that, I apologize if it seemed like I was being disrespectful, after all Inigo is of Spanish origin. I missed Iago, that would work too, and this will sound stupid but for some reason I completely forgot Ira was a name I had heard before. It's true that there could be a few names that are coined before we run out of ideal ones but if a couple more I storms are retired before then we'll either have to put one back in circulation or use something fairly obscure or mythological.
Again, I have absolutely NOTHING against obscure names, unless they're of ridiculous nonsensical origin and none of the names you posted are. I have a pretty obscure name myself, but I think that for something like a hurricane the name should be easy to remember and fairly easy to pronounce. (with the exception of French and Spanish names us silly Americans can't pronounce, because that would be our problem and we'd just deal with it) I think the WMO has been pretty compliant with keeping names at least in a fairly conventional (and again, if your name is unconventional, by no means is that 'bad') manner so people can remember them. Something like Ichabod or Irv or Iago would be fine because it's easy once you hear it to phonetically reproduce it but something Iorweth or Ildefonso wouldn't be that ideal because they would be hard to remember and somewhat hard to phonetically reproduce for some.
Also, I think Ian would be a fine name but I don't think they should use it as it's only one letter from Ivan. Then again they replaced 'Rita' with 'Rina'

