BEIJING, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- China's National Meteorological Center (NMC) asked netizens to come up with a new typhoon name to replace "Haima," which will be retired after a storm bearing the name caused huge losses in China and the Philippines last year.
As of noon on Friday, the center's naming campaign was reposted around 90,000 times with more than 30,000 comments after it was introduced on the NMC's Sina Weibo microblog account on Wednesday.
Chinese netizens have seized the chance to name a typhoon, brainstorming a string of names ranging from "Mantis shrimp" to "Apple."
"How about 'Milu,' a species of deer? Its pronunciation in Chinese is the same as 'to get lost,' which expresses the public's wish for the typhoon to lose its way and fail to make landfall," said web user "DaiKeBlain."
"I want to name it 'Basi' after the famous panda who died Wednesday morning," said another user "Zahuopu."
Web user "Xusansui" even suggested calling the typhoon her ex-boyfriend's name. "People across China will hate him," she said on her Weibo account.
Joking aside, the rules state the new name should consist of two or three Chinese characters and be easy to pronounce for broadcasting. Commercial brand names, as well as current and previously used typhoon names, are not allowed.
The NMC will randomly select three netizens from those who retweeted the post between Sept. 13 and Sept. 18. Each person selected will submit three typhoon names.
After several rounds of selection, a final name will be chosen and announced in February 2018 at a session of the Typhoon Committee, an intergovernmental body under the auspices of the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East and the World Meteorological Organization.
The NMC will offer a certificate to the winner.
Haima will be removed from a list of tropical cyclone names because Typhoon Haima caused major damage in the Philippines and southeast China in 2016.
The decision was made by the Typhoon Committee during its 49th session in February 2017, which also asked China to re-submit a new typhoon name.
"Typhoons were coded by number before 2000," said Li Qingqing, a typhoon expert at Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology.
In 2000, the Typhoon Committee started allowing its 14 members to pick names for tropical cyclones in the northwestern Pacific and the South China Sea. Ten names came from China.
According to Li, the current typhoon names submitted by China include names of plants, animals, places or mythological figures, such as Wukong, the Monkey King in the Chinese classic "Journey to the West," and Yutu, named after the pet rabbit of moon goddess Chang'e.
"A typhoon's name may be reused many times or removed from the list if it causes huge losses to one or more countries or regions," said Zhi Xiefei, a professor at the university.
The Typhoon Committee has removed a total of 40 typhoon names, 32 of which were removed due to the severe damage they caused, including the China-named Longwang and Haiyan.
Zhi said that when a name is retired, the country or region that originally suggested it can re-submit a new name.
It is the first time that the NMC has authorized individuals to name typhoons.
"The campaign allows the public to better understand typhoons and their potential damage and raises their awareness of disaster prevention," said Li.
But the NMC warned in a Weibo post: "We have naming rules. Don't expect an anchor to announce 'Typhoon Mantis Shrimp is approaching.'"
