How did Hurricane Sandy get its name?

The six lists are used in rotation and re-cycled every six years, i.e., the 2012 list will be used again in 2018. The only time that there is a change in the list is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for reasons of sensitivity. read more

The last hurricane name to be retired was 2011's Irene, which claimed over 50 lives in North America and in the Caribbean. But with 61 days left in 2012, we may actually be running out of hurricane names for the rest of the year, according to The Atlantic. read more

The storm we call Sandy was the 18th tropical storm to form in the Atlantic in 2012, and so got the 18th name on the list. Each year has a predetermine list of names for tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic. read more