Who decides upon the names given to hurricanes and how are the names chosen?

Siskin

This was in the Mail this week Linus, but the bin men came today.....Anyway, I found this for you. In the 'retired' section I'm sure they've left out Andrew as I believe this was in the Mail's list. Hurricanes names are chosen from a list selected by the World Meteorological Organization. The Atlantic is assigned six lists of names, with one list used each year. Every sixth year, the first list begins again. Each name on the list starts with a different letter, for example, the name of the very first hurricane of the season starts with the letter A, the next starts with the letter B, and so on. The letters "Q", "U", "X", "Y" and "Z", however, are not used. Often when an unusually destructive hurricane hits, that hurricane's name is retired and never used again. Since 1954, forty names have been retired. In 1996 Hurricane Luis was retired. http://kids.earth.nasa.gov/archive/hurricane/names.html Sep 30 04, 3:01 PM