"Polar" refers to the poles, in this case the North geometric pole, and "vortex" is an exact description of what wind is doing in a polar vortex.
Storms have been given names since the early 19th century, so your "used to be" here is well beyond the threshold of living memory.
My interpretation of the parent post is that it refers to the naming of every typical winter storm during a season, which was begun by the Weather Channel in 2012. I do in fact remember the debate at the time over that practice.
Wikipedia gives only two examples of winter storm names predating 1900, "The Great Snow of 1717" and "The Schoolhouse Blizzard" or "Children's Blizzard" of 1888.
That seems to be a different practice than winter storms Ajax, Bella, Cara, Delphi, Echo and Ferus of the 2021-2022 season.
And is it really "entirely" in how I see it? I'm referring to the breathless intonation of modern weather talking heads as they discuss normal weather phenomena as a "polar vortex" (in scare quotes). They used to just say it was going to snow more or be colder. The use of "polar vortex" in that context definitely amps up the drama.
So, we have a very rare, very extreme weather phenomenon that’s hit multiple in the last 10 years after decades of static behavior. The wiki on the Polar Vortex even attributes the 2013 storm with popularizing the term due to the heavy reporting.
* technically it's always there around the north pole, but we only talk about it when it dips down into populated areas.