On February 23, 1975, the then Australian Science Minister Bill Morrison as a gesture for the International Women's year, ordered the BoM to start naming tropical cyclones after both males and females.[1]
In February 1975, the NZMS decided to include male names on the naming lists from the 1975-76 season, after a request from Fiji's National Council of Women who considered the practice of only using female names discriminatory.[2] On July 1, 1975, control of the Fiji Department of Meteorology was ceremonially handed to the Fijian Government and it became the Fiji Meteorological Service.[2]
Later that decade as the dual sex naming of tropical cyclones started in the Northern Hemisphere, the NZMS looked at adding names from around the Pacific to the naming lists rather than the European names that were currently used.[2] As a result of the many languages and cultures in the Pacific there was a lot of discussion surrounding this matter, with one name "Oni" being dropped as it meant the end of the world in one language.[2] One proposal suggested that cyclones be named from the country nearest to which they formed, however, this was dropped when it was realized that a cyclone might be less destructive in its formative stage than later in its development.[2] Eventually it was decided to throw names from all over the South Pacific into a pot at a training course, where each course member provided a list of names that were short, easily pronounced, culturally acceptable throughout the Pacific and did not contain any idiosyncrasies.[2] These names were then collated, edited for suitability before being cross-checked with the group for acceptability.[2] It was intended that the four lists of names should be alphabetical with alternative male and female names while using only ethnic names, however, it was not possible to complete the lists using only ethnic names so some European names were added in.[2] As a result, there was a scattering of European names in the final naming lists, which have been used by the Fiji Meteorological Service and NZMS since the 1980–81 season.[2]