The NHC/TPC does not control the naming of tropical storms. Instead, a list of names has been established by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization. For Atlantic hurricanes, there is actually one list for each of six years. In other words, one list is repeated every seventh year. The only time that there is a change is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate for obvious reasons of sensitivity. If that occurs, then at an annual meeting by the committee (called primarily to discuss many other issues) the offending name is stricken from the list and another name is selected to replace it.

There is an exception to the retirement rule, however. Before 1979, when the first permanent six-year storm name list began, some storm names were simply not used anymore. For example, in 1966, “Fern” was substituted for “Frieda,” and no reason was cited.
Below is a list of retired names for the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico. There are, however, a great number of destructive storms not included on this list because they occurred before the hurricane naming convention was established in 1950.

Carol 1954
Hazel 1954
Connie 1955
Diane 1955
Ione 1955
Audrey 1957
Donna 1960
Carla 1961
Flora 1963
Cleo 1964
Dora 1964
Hilda 1964
Betsy 1965
Inez 1966
Beulah 1967
Camille 1969
Celia 1970
Agnes 1972
Carmen 1974
Eloise 1975
Anita 1977
David 1979
Frederic 1979
Allen 1980
Alicia 1983
Elena 1985
Gloria 1985
Gilbert 1988
Joan 1988
Hugo 1989
Diana 1990
Bob 1991
Andrew 1992
Luis 1995
Marilyn 1995
Opal 1995
Roxanne 1995
Cesar 1996
Fran 1996
Hortense 1996
Georges 1998
Mitch 1998
Floyd 1999
Keith 2000
Allison 2001
Iris 2001
Lili 2002
Isabel 2003
Fabian 2003
Charley 2004
Ivan 2004
Jeanne 2004
Frances 2004
Dennis 2005
Katrina 2005
Rita 2005
Stan 2005
Wilma 2005
Dean 2007
Noel 2007
Felix 2007