Hello, everyone! It has been a while since I have a written a blog here on the Hurricanes Wikia, and I am excited to write another one!
Today, I want to talk about a potential change in this year's Atlantic naming list. To provide some background about my post, names can occasionally be retired for political reasons. For example, the name Adolph was removed from List V in the Eastern Pacific in 2001 because of the similarity with Hitler's first name. In addition, Gloria (the PAGASA name for Typhoon Chataan) was replaced with Glenda after 2002 following Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's re-election as President of the Philippines in 2005.
With this in mind, I pose the following question - could the name Marco be removed from List VI of the Atlantic this year? Here are my reasons for believing this:
- Marco is the name of Florida's current senior senator, Marco Rubio.
- If a Tropical Storm or Hurricane Marco affected Florida, there could evidently be a lot of confusion with and unintended political attention involving Rubio. Would the NHC be willing to risk this?
- Senator Rubio is a relatively high-profile American politician and may run for president in 2024. Although other presumptive American presidential candidates' names have not been removed from the Atlantic naming lists, because Rubio is Floridian, I believe he could have greater say in requesting the NHC to replace his name.
On a side note, the name Rick is on List I of the Eastern Pacific naming lists. However, because it is highly unlikely that a storm named Rick would affect Florida, I doubt Rick Scott would be too concerned about "Hurricane Rick" jokes.
According to a conversation on a Hurricanes Wiki forum, the NHC would request retirement of the name Marco in this case. Should Rubio's office recommend retirement to the NHC, here are some replacement names I could see them providing:
- Mason (popular name in Florida and overall in America)
- Manolo (due to the Hispanic population of Florida)
- Malik (due to the African-American population of Florida)
- Melvin
- Maurice
- Mort
- Miles
- Micah
What do you all think? Will Marco Rubio be concerned enough about a storm named Marco to send the NHC a message? Or will he let this go and embrace becoming a possible meme this hurricane season? Let me know in the comments below!
P.S. In response to a question Steve posed on the Atlantic forum, barring Marco not being preemptively removed, I am excited for this name because I can not wait to see the possible social media reactions to a storm with the same name as a well-known American senator! On top of this, having a Tropical Storm Marco active with Polo in the Eastern Pacific would be another fun coincidence!