It sounds unbelievable, but a recent study shows there might be some science to this madness.

People don't take hurricanes as seriously if they have a feminine name and the consequences are deadly, finds a new groundbreaking study.

Researchers at the University of Illinois and Arizona State University said hurricanes named after females have historically killed more people because people didn't consider them as risky nor take the same precautions as they would if the hurricanes were named after males.

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Their study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined six decades of hurricane death rates according to gender from 1950 and 2012.  It found that of the 47 most damaging hurricanes, female-named hurricanes resulted in an average of 45 deaths compared to 23 deaths in male-named storms.

The study also discovered that the difference in death rates between genders was even more pronounced when comparing strongly masculine names against strongly feminine names.

The study said that the model it used to come to these conclusions suggests that "changing a severe hurricane's name from Charley ... to Eloise ... could nearly triple its death toll."

The results imply an "implicit sexism," that is, "we make decisions about storms based on the gender of their name without even knowing it," said Sharon Shavitt, study co-author and professor of marketing at the University of Illinois.

Researchers created six experiments to test the hypothesis that the gender of the storm names impacts people's judgments about a storm. They said sexism was revealed when respondents predicted male hurricanes would be more intense than female hurricanes. 

In another exercise, the hurricane's sex affected how respondents said they would prepare for a hurricane. These respondents imagining a female hurricane were not as willing to seek shelter.

The study authors suggest the meteorological community re-consider the merits of the storm naming practice.

"For policymakers, these findings suggest the value of considering a new system for hurricane naming to reduce the influence of biases on hurricane risk assessments and to motivate optimal preparedness."

Hurricanes have been named since 1950.  Only female names were originally used but male names were introduced in 1979.

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