By the time the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season ends, the National Hurricane Center in Miami will have named at least 19 storms.

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This year's named storms began with Hurricane Alex and have run, so far, through Hurricane Tomas. While the season ends Tuesday, in some years hurricanes have continued to form as late as January.

The names are selected by the World Meteorological Organization. The organization maintains six lists, rotating them annually.

"They try to keep a good mix of Anglo and Hispanic names, although there are some French and some Russian names in there, too," Dennis Feltgen, spokesman for the hurricane center, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

The names of destructive hurricanes are retired. Katrina, Rita and Wilma, which all made their mark in 2005, will be replaced in the 2011 list with Katia, Rina and Whitney.

The major reason for using names instead of numbers or other identifiers is that they are easy to remember. That is especially helpful when two, three or four hurricanes and tropical storms are active simultaneously.