Can someone explain the naming scheme behind airport runways?

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All the time when watching airliner radio chatter vids and stuff like that, I see runways being referred to by names like 9-left or 27-right, what gives? Is there a specific reason a runway might be called that despite the airport not having nearly that many runways? Wouldn’t it just be simpler to have runway 1, runway 2, etc.?

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