People say men and women see colors differently. To women, lipsticks come in different shades of red—there’s scarlet, vermillion, crimson—but to men, they’re simply red. There’s an infinite number of colors and they can be very subjective; good thing there are authorities that dictate the names of every identifiable shade in the spectrum. Although names are provided, it doesn’t go that these names are commonly known by the average human.
Switch on your color geekiness. Here’s over a dozen weird-sounding names you wouldn’t associate with colors and a short back story for each one.
1) Military Olive
It’s easy to imagine the color our military men wear and naming a specific color after them was a great idea!
2) Daphne
One can easily expect a shade of pink or soft yellow upon hearing the color Daphne. Daphne is a soft shade of blue but ironically, it’s usually used for industrial projects.
3) Amaranth
It’s a cross between red and pink but you can’t tell whether it’s one or the other. It’s a very feminine color for a reason: it’s named after a flower! (Spoiler: most of the colors that will follow are named after plants, too!)
4) Bayou
It’s a bluish-green color taken from a Franco-English term for a body of water typically found in flat, low-lying area close to a swamp. It has different variations like Green Bayou and Blue Bayou.
5) Tortoise Shell
Pantone gets a bit literal with the way they name their colors and this one is based on a precious creature. The shell of a tortoise is a combination of different shades of brown
6) Tender Shoots
Tender Shoots roots back to its literal meaning. We might expect either a dark shade or pale shade of green but nope. It’s almost a Kermit the Frog kind of green, if you ask me. :)
7) Sassafras
Drawing inspiration from nature, Sassafras is a tree with leaves that turn from green to a dark red color. It’s hard to tell whether the name was drawn from the bark’s color or its wilted leaves, though.
8) Rhododendron
This color may sound like a dinosaur specie, but Rhododendron is a delicate flower that blooms in bushes. Although it comes in different berry colors, the most recognizable kind is the color above.
9) Coquelicot
Under the sun, a coquelicot flower looks orange but when you look at it closely, it’s hard to tell if it’s orange or a confused red. Exactly like this color.
10) Campanula
Campanula is also a flower but the color is derived specifically from double flowering campanulas with a pale blue-purple combination.
11) Labrador
It’s disappointing how it’s not the color of the family dog we all love. Labrador is a shade of blue that takes its name from the mineral labradorite, a turquoise form of feldspar.
12) Gloxinia
Gloxinia sounds like an element used in science projects but the name also comes from a flower — a very pretty one.
13) Limoges
Limoges is a city in France. The tower and dome of Gare des Bénédictins are painted in a pale blue color where the color Limoges was probably taken after.
All images were prepared by the author based from this
Have you read about other colors we’ve probably never heard of? It doesn’t matter if they’re paint, crayons or Pantone; share them through the comments below!