What are your least favorite winter words? Snow, sleet, ice, accumulation, wind chill factor, black ice, and school closings can all cause some negative reactions for most of us. But if you live in New York in the winter, these are kind of par for the course.

So, what about those 26 words that may make you curse this winter? They are actually names created by The Weather Channel for this year's anticipated Winter Storms. This year's names are: Aiden, Benji, Chloe, Dylan, Ethan, Frankie, Grayson, Hunter, Inga, Jaxon, Kalani, Liam, Mateo, Noah, Oliver, Polly, Quinn, Riley, Skylar, Toby, Uma, Violet, Wilbur, Xanto, Yvonne, and Zoey.

Massive Snowstorm Brings Up To Foot Of Snow To Large Swath Of Northeast
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Which made we wonder, what qualifies a storm to be given a name, who comes up the names, and does everybody agree on naming them?

As it turns out, naming winter storms has a long history in America, albeit they were only given a name after seeing how much the storm destroyed, a historical storm, if you will. According to Wikipedia, when the Weather Channel started publishing a list of storm names a couple of years ago, not everyone was happy. In fact, both NOAA and the NWS don't use these names and have actually asked the Weather Channel to stop doing it.

According to the Weather Channel, naming the storms help the public in preparation for a storm as it's easier to talk about a complex weather system if it has a name, and they continue to improve the science behind naming these storms.

U.S. East Coast Digs Out After Historic Snowstorm
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How do they come up with these names? Apparently, they are based on the most popular baby names from the previous year, minus any names already chosen by the National Hurricane Center or any retired Hurricane names.

Whether you agree or not, it looks like the names are here to stay and we may get to know some of these storms pretty well this winter.

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