CatchThis Naming Company Blog

Anemonym

I love the American Name Society list. Here’s the current discussion. I learned a new word!

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Anemonym

The following definition is taken from, “An Alphabetical Guide to the
Language of Name Studies” by Adrian Room, Scarecrow Press, 1996:

“Anemonym [Gk. anemos, "wind" + -onym]. The name of a hurricane or other
violent wind. Ex. Ava, Betsy, Flora, Hattie. *When Spanish colonizers first
settled in America, they named hurricanes for the saint’s day on which the
hurricane struck.. Hurricanes were later named by their coordinates and
later still by letter according to the alphabetical signalling code (Able,
Baker, Charlie, etc.). In 1953 the weather bureau started giving hurricanes
women’s names, with the first hurricane in a year allotted a name beginning
with A (Alice, Alma, etc.), the second beginning with B (Betsy, Brenda,
etc.), the third with C (Cleo, etc.) and so on.”

Posted: Tuesday, January 18th, 2005 at 5:50 pm

Laurel Sutton

Veteran naming strategist and co-founder of Catchword

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