A 2014 study analyzed 62 years of US hurricanes and found female-named storms were nearly three times as deadly as male-named ones, possibly because people perceived them as less threatening and were less likely to take protective action

When a hurricane approaches, people usually look at its projected path, wind speed, pressure and expected damage. But could something as seemingly irrelevant as the storm’s name influence how dangerous people believe it is?

A 2014 study published in PNAS examined more than six decades of US hurricane data to investigate exactly that question. Researchers compared hurricanes with masculine and feminine names and found that, among more severe storms, those with feminine names were associated with significantly higher death rates.

In the research, Kiju Jung and colleagues argued that the difference was not because a hurricane itself has a gender. Instead, they proposed that people may unconsciously attach gender stereotypes to a storm’s name, perceive a feminine-named hurricane as less threatening and consequently take fewer protective measures.

The study looked at hurricanes from 1950 to 2012

The research team began by examining archival data on 94 Atlantic hurricanes that made landfall in the United States between 1950 and 2012. Nine independent coders rated the historical hurricane names for their perceived masculinity or femininity. The researchers then compared those ratings with hurricane fatalities, minimum atmospheric pressure and normalized property damage.

Two hurricanes, Katrina in 2005 and Audrey in 1957, were removed from the final statistical analysis because their exceptionally high death tolls produced a poor model fit. That left 92 hurricanes for the main analysis.

The researchers found that the relationship between a storm's name and fatalities was particularly noticeable among hurricanes that caused greater normalized damage.

Severe hurricanes with feminine names had higher predicted death tolls

For less damaging hurricanes, the researchers found little change in fatalities based on whether the name was perceived as masculine or feminine. The pattern was different for more severe hurricanes. According to the study's model, a hurricane with a relatively masculine name, rated at 3 on the masculinity-femininity index (1 = very masculine, 11 = very feminine), was estimated to cause 15.15 deaths. A hurricane with a relatively feminine name, rated at 9, was estimated to cause 41.84 deaths.

The researchers gave another striking example. Their model estimated that changing the name of a severe hurricane from Charley, which had a masculinity-femininity index of 2.889, to Eloise, with an index of 8.944, could nearly triple the predicted death toll, from 14.87 to 41.45 deaths.

The authors stressed that the name itself was not making the hurricane physically more dangerous. Their explanation focused on how people perceived and responded to the threat.

Researchers tested whether names changed perceptions of risk

The researchers then conducted six experiments to examine whether people actually perceived male- and female-named hurricanes differently. In the first experiment, 346 participants were shown five male-named and five female-named hurricanes and asked to predict their intensity. Hurricanes with masculine names received a higher average intensity rating than those with feminine names: 4.386 compared with 4.186.

A second experiment tested names including Hurricane Alexander, Hurricane Alexandra and an unnamed hurricane. Participants viewed a scenario and assessed how risky the storm appeared. Hurricane Alexander was judged more intense and risky than Hurricane Alexandra and the unnamed hurricane.

The findings pointed toward the same possibility: the gender associated with a hurricane's name could affect how seriously people perceived the threat.

Male-named hurricanes prompted stronger evacuation intentions

The researchers next examined whether those perceptions could influence people's willingness to take protective action. In the third experiment, participants were shown either Hurricane Christopher or Hurricane Christina and asked about their evacuation intentions.

Christopher produced a greater intention to act than Christina. Participants also perceived Christopher as riskier. The fourth experiment went further by introducing a voluntary evacuation order. Participants were asked whether they would follow the order when facing Hurricane Danny or Hurricane Kate.

Again, participants reported significantly greater intentions to follow the evacuation order when the hurricane was named Danny.

The researchers tested whether the effect was simply about familiar names

The authors also considered whether differences in the popularity or familiarity of names could explain their results. In another experiment, they used Victor and Victoria, with Victoria being the more popular name in the relevant naming data.

Participants still reported greater intentions to follow an evacuation order for Hurricane Victor than for Hurricane Victoria. Victor was also perceived as riskier. This suggested to the researchers that name familiarity alone did not explain the hurricane gender effect.

They also examined whether the names differed in perceived age, intellectual competence and likability. Across the experiments, the direction of those differences varied, while the gender-of-name effect remained consistent.

The gender stereotype

The researchers proposed that the findings could represent what they described as a potentially “hazardous form of implicit sexism.”

Their reasoning was based on commonly held gender expectations. The study noted that men are often expected to be strong, competent and aggressive, while women are often expected to be warm and passive.

The researchers hypothesized that these associations could influence how people interpret a hurricane's name. In their experiments, participants tended to perceive male-named hurricanes as stronger and more dangerous. That perception, in turn, was associated with greater willingness to take protective action.

Importantly, the researchers did not find that people consciously believed female hurricanes were safer.

When people were asked directly, the difference disappeared

One of the study's additional tests produced an important qualification. Researchers explicitly asked participants to choose which of the paired male- and female-named hurricanes was more risky and dangerous.

The result was essentially evenly divided. 50.5% of participants chose more female-named hurricanes as riskier, while 49.5% chose more male-named hurricanes.

There was no statistically significant difference in the explicit choices. This distinction mattered to the researchers because it suggested that the effect observed in the other experiments could operate through less conscious perceptions rather than an openly stated belief that male hurricanes are more dangerous.

Why do hurricanes have male and female names

The study also placed the findings in the history of hurricane naming. US hurricanes were once given only female names. According to the researchers, that practice ended in the late 1970s amid awareness of sexism, and an alternating male-female naming system was adopted in 1979.

The researchers examined the data from before and after that change separately. Although the smaller sample sizes meant the results lacked sufficient statistical power to conclusively establish the same effects in each period, the findings were directionally similar to those from the full dataset.