(Bloomberg) — Fabian wasn't invited to the Atlantic hurricane season that begins today. Nor were Isabel and Juan.

Hurricane Fabian killed four in Bermuda in 2003 and was the worst hurricane to hit the Island since 1926.

Hurricanes Fabian, Isabel and Juan were so offensive in 2003 that they won't reappear on the rotating lists of 21 names chosen for severe Atlantic Ocean weather by the World Meteorological Organisation.

Ida, Fred and Joaquin will take their place on the alphabetical roster for 2009. The list and five others for Atlantic storms are reused every six years.

"The only time that there is a change in the list is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate," the National Hurricane Center in Miami says on its website.

Seventy-three names have been retired from the lists of Atlantic storms, including Andrew, Florida's most expensive hurricane, which caused $15.5 billion in insured property losses in 1992, according to Fitch Ratings.

The most came off in 2005, when five names were stricken, including Katrina, which flooded New Orleans, killed more than 1,000 people and cost insurers $41 billion, the most of any natural disaster, Fitch data show.

Hurricane Isabel, which had maximum winds of 166 miles an hour, struck North Carolina in September 2003. It moved north through Virginia and Maryland before dissipating in Canada. Isabel was directly responsible for 16 deaths and caused $3.4 billion in damage, according to the hurricane centre's storm archives.

Fabian was Bermuda's worst hurricane since 1926, and Juan was the first direct hit on Halifax, Nova Scotia, since 1893, causing a record high tide in the harbour, the archives say.

Hurricanes in the West Indies used to be named after saints, according to the book 'Hurricanes', by Ivan R. Tannehill, the hurricane centre says. Hurricane Santa Ana struck Puerto Rico in 1825, and two San Felipes reached the island in 1876 and 1928, it says, citing the book.

The centre began giving Atlantic tropical storms people's names in 1953, when the US abandoned a plan to name them after its phonetic military alphabet, such as Able, Baker and Charlie.

"Experience shows that the use of short, distinctive given names in written as well as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error," the hurricane centre says.

The Geneva-based World Meteorological Organisation now maintains the Atlantic lists and ones for three areas of the Pacific Ocean; two sections of the Indian Ocean; and the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Australian regions. Those lists are reused at different intervals and contain indigenous names, such as the Thai name Prapiroon.

All the names were women's until 1978, when men's were included for some Pacific storms. In 1979, male names were added to the list for the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico region, known as the Atlantic Basin. The names alternate between males and females and also between English, French and Spanish origin.

"Those are the three languages dominant in the basin," said Peter Bowyer, programme manager of the Canadian Hurricane Centre in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

The 2009 Atlantic storm names are: Ana, Bill, Claudette, Danny, Erika, Fred, Grace, Henri, Ida, Joaquin, Kate, Larry, Mindy, Nicholas, Odette, Peter, Rose, Sam, Teresa, Victor and Wanda. Names are given to tropical storms, which are those with sustained winds of at least 39 miles an hour. When winds blow consistently at 74 miles an hour or more, the storm becomes a hurricane.

The 2009 season, which ends November 30, will be "near-normal", with four to seven hurricanes forming in the Atlantic, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted last month. As many as 14 named storms will develop, NOAA said. There were 16 named storms last year, and three — Gustav, Ike and Paloma — were kicked off the list for bad behaviour.

Should there be more storms than names during the six-month season, the weather centre is ready: additional ones will be identified by the gender-neutral Greek alphabet, such as Alpha, Beta and Gamma.