WASHINGTON — Which scares you more: Hurricane Victor or Hurricane Victoria? People are slightly less likely to flee an oncoming storm with a feminine name than a masculine one, a new study finds.

But here is Victoria’s secret: Hurricanes with feminine names turn out to be deadlier in the United States than their more macho-sounding counterparts, probably because their monikers make people underestimate their danger, the researchers conclude.

In fact, the two deadliest storms to make landfall in the U.S. since 1979, when male names were introduced, were named Katrina and Sandy.

The study, which didn’t involve any experts in meteorology or disaster science, is published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Atlantic hurricane season started Sunday.

In six different experiments, more than 1,000 test subjects told behavioral scientists at the University of Illinois in Champaign that they were slightly more likely to evacuate from an oncoming storm named Christopher than Christina, Victor than Victoria, Alexander than Alexandra and Danny than Kate. They found female names less frightening.

“People are looking for meaning in any information that they receive,” said study co-author Sharon Shavitt, a professor of marketing. “The name of the storm is providing people with irrelevant information that they actually use.”

Shavitt said both men and women rated female storms less scary and they both “are likely to believe that women are milder and less aggressive.” It fits with other research about gender perception differences, she said. Sandy, while it can also be a male name, was chosen as a female name by weather authorities in 2012. Shavitt said it also ranked as rather feminine when she asked a small group of people to assess names.