Just as the English alphabet groups the three crazy letters—“X,” “Y,” and “Z”—at the end, Greek saves some very special characters for last.

The Cyrillic alphabet, the script of Russians (and others), is one of the most widely used systems of writing in the world.

For example, the variant that emerged in India is not popularly known as B.1.617.2. Rather, it is known as Delta, the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet.

The WMO decided to replace the Greek alphabet with a supplemental list of names. Like the standard list of names, that supplemental list will also be based on the modern English alphabet ...

The forms of the letters go all the way back to the Phoenicians, and the first two letters, alpha beta, which came into English from Greek through Latin, have not changed in all that time.

The Greek alphabet will be replaced by a supplemental list of names using the same rules as the main Atlantic hurricane season naming list — a list of names A-Z but excluding the letters Q, U, X ...