According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) resolution made by the 31st session of Typhoon Committee meeting held in Manila, Philippines in December 1998, a new typhoon naming system has been put into service for international aviation and navigation since January 1st, 2000. The new naming system maintains the numbering method (for example, the first typhoon occurring in 2004 is numbered 0401, following existing method) while replaces the original set of unified identifications of typhoons occurring in the Western North Pacific and South China Sea region by a new set of 140 names divided into five groups with each containing 28 names. Each of 14 Typhoon Committee members from nations and district of the Western North Pacific and South China Sea region provides 10 names. The WMO Regional Specialized Meteorological Center (RSMC) based in Tokyo, Japan, is responsible for naming the typhoons according to the arranged set of names. Each nation (and district) has their sole discretion in deciding whether to use the name for internal typhoon reporting.

To cope with the WMO Typhoon Committee's new naming system for typhoons occurring in the Western North Pacific and South China Sea region, the Central Weather Administration started on January 1st, 2000 to refer to typhoons in reporting by typhoon numbers as the major identification and by the WMO Typhoon Committee's international names as auxiliary identification.

The new set of 140 typhoon names is extremely complicated and irregular as they are from different nations and districts, including not only names of persons, but also nouns of categories such as animals, plants, astrology, places, mythological figures, jewelry, etc. These names are not alphabetically ordered. For the sake of prudence, the Central Weather Administration conducted a general opinion survey with an outcome of over 74% of people seeing it more appropriate to use typhoon numbers as major identification for reporting purposes and international names designed by WMO Typhoon Committee as auxiliary identification. The latest version of the international naming for typhoons is as shown in Table 2-1 and Table 2-2 contains the original meaning for each typhoon name.

Table 2-1 International naming for typhoons occurring in the Western North Pacific and South China Sea (updated May, 2026)

Table 2-2 Meanings of typhoon names in the Western North Pacific and South China Sea