It is a little known fact that in Germany, anyone with a few hundred euros to spare can sponsor a high or low pressure front and name it after themselves or a loved one. That's why a German heatwave might be referred to on the weather forecast as the Wibke warm front, or a cold spell the Helmut high pressure area.

But the car firm BMW has been caught out after taking advantage of the tradition by buying the naming rights to the cold snap which has so far seen more than 100 people freeze to death across Europe. For just €299 (£248), the company pre-emptively bought the rights to the third high pressure front of the year and named it Cooper, in homage to its latest Mini Cooper Roadster.

Unluckily for BMW, the Cooper cold front brought with it some of the most vicious weather Europe has seen in years, with temperatures dropping as low as -33C. On Thursday, the European death toll rose to 113 people with reports of 20 more deaths in Ukraine, nine more in Poland and one more in Serbia.

The tradition of naming weather fronts dates back to 1954, when a student at the Institute for Meteorology at Berlin's Freie Universität (FU) came up with the idea as a way to track pressure systems more easily. Karla Wege, who went on to become a weather girl on the state broadcaster ZDF, suggested giving female names to the lows and male names to the highs.

According to the FU's website, in 1998 "a debate began as to whether it was discrimination to give the highs with fine weather male names and lows with bad weather female names. The issue was resolved by giving the lows male names and the highs female names in odd years, and vice versa in even years." The only rules are that the name must be a "proper" one, acceptable according to the strict German legislation on what one can name one's baby. Cooper is apparently permitted by the name police.

In November 2002, the institute began its "adopt a vortex" programme, which allowed members of the public to suggest a name "or adopt an existing one" for a fee. It costs €299 to sponsor a high and €199 for a low.

Lows are cheaper because they are more common. The FU says it expects on average to name 50 to 60 highs and about 150 lows per year. The money is used to maintain the "the students' observation service" at the weather station in the Berlin suburb of Dahlem.

Apart from the US Weather Service, the FU's Institute of Meteorology is the only source for named vortices worldwide.

The Cooper name was registered by an employee at the Munich-based marketing agency Sassenbach, which does social media for Mini Cooper. The woman who bought the name did not respond to the Guardian's inquiries on Thursday, but she also appears to have snapped up the rights to name a low front Minnie later in the year. One of the current slogans for Mini Cooper is "Mini makes the weather".

BMW said in a statement that it had sponsored both names but had no control over when they were used. "It was not intentional and you cannot tell in advance what a weather system will do. That it took on catastrophic proportions and left so many victims, we do regret very much," a spokeswoman said.