Color Names

A handpicked list of 30261 unique color names from various sources and thousands of curated user submissions.

The names of color function like a thread attached to a frightfully slender needle, capable of stitching together our most delicate emotions and memories. When the needle hits the target, we feel either pleasure or empathy. Kenya Hara – White

Explore / Find Names | Name distribution in different models | Usage | CDN | Public Rest API | Usage JS/Java/Kotlin/C# | Name Sources | Latest Color Names | Sponsors

About 📋

The aim of this project is to create a list of color names as large as possible, while keeping a good name quality. We've merged various lists, modified the names when there were duplicates with different hex values, and shifted the colors a bit when there were identical colors with different names.

Explore 🌍

• Color Picker & Name Search Click the wheel to get name for a color, or just use the full text search.
• Color Picker: Click the colored surface to change the color or type in a hex value below the name.
• Color Picker II: Move your mouse and scroll to choose a color.
• Name Search: full text search on the color list.
• Color Distribution 3D view of all color names in different color spaces.
• Twitter Bot: Posts random colors and lets you submit new ones.

Color Name Submission 💌

via form 🌈 / or twitter 🐦

Make sure to read the naming rules before you contribute!

Color Count: 30261 🎉

~0.18% of the RGB color space

Color distribution 🛰

When coming up with new color names, it is vital to know what spots in a certain color-space are crowded and where there is still room for new colors. For example: Our API returns the closest RGB color to a given HEX value. To avoid too many colors snapping to the same name, we aim to distribute the colors evenly in the color space: Visualization

Usage 📖

Node.js Installation 📦

Size Warning (1.15 MB): If you are doing this in the browser, consider using the public rest API

npm install color-name-list --save

or yarn add color-name-list

CDN 🌍

All Names 📚

JSON / JSON.min / CSV / YML / JS / XML / HTML / SCSS

Best of Names subset 🏆

JSON / JSON.min / CSV / YML / JS / XML / HTML / SCSS / CSS

API 🃏

To make it easier to access the names, we offer a free and public Rest API that allows you to access all the color names and names from other publicly available name lists. You can find the full API code and documentation in this repository.

API Example Call Usage

https://api.color.pizza/v1/?values=00f,f00,f00&list=bestOf

API Disclaimer

The API is free to use and has no limitations. But if your app/site is commercial and causes excessive traffic, I might contact you to become a sponsor.

Feel free to deploy it yourself, it is very easy to host/deploy on heroku and has no dependencies Color-Name-API

Usage JS ⌨

Size Warning (1.15 MB): If you are doing this in the browser, consider using the public rest API

Exact Color

import { colornames } from 'color-name-list';

let someColor = colornames.find(color => color.hex === '#ffffff');
console.log(someColor.name); // => white

let someNamedColor = colornames.find(color => color.name === 'Eigengrau')
console.log(someColor.hex); // => #16161d

Closest Named Color

Since there are 16777216 possible RGB colors, you might use a library such as nearest-color or ClosestVector to help you find the the closest named color.

import nearestColor from 'nearest-color';
import { colornames } from 'color-name-list';

// nearestColor need objects {name => hex} as input
const colors = colornames.reduce((o, { name, hex }) => Object.assign(o, { [name]: hex }), {});

const nearest = nearestColor.from(colors);

// get closest named color
nearest('#f1c1d1'); // => Fairy Tale

Note: If you are looking for something visually more accurate, you could use DeltaE or use the above snippet, but using ciecam02 instead of RGB.

Building 🔨

npm install && npm run build

See package.json for more.

Usage Java/Kotlin ⌨

Java/Kotlin usage is maintained through this library: UwUAroze/Color-Names. Additional info can be found there, but basic usage is outlined below:

Importing - Gradle.kts

repositories {
      maven("https://jitpack.io")
}

dependencies {
      implementation("me.aroze:color-names:1.0.2")
}

Importing - Maven

<repository>
  <id>jitpack.io</id>
  <url>https://jitpack.io</url>
</repository>

<dependency>
  <groupId>me.aroze</groupId>
  <artifactId>color-names</artifactId>
  <version>1.0.2</version>
</dependency>

Closest named color - Java

public ColorNames colorNames = new ColorNameBuilder()
  .loadDefaults()
  .build();

String fromHex = colorNames.getName("#facfea"); // "Classic Rose"
String fromRGB = colorNames.getName(224, 224, 255); // "Stoic White"
String fromColor = colorNames.getName(new Color(255, 219, 240)); // "Silky Pink"

Closest named color - Kotlin

val colorNames = ColorNameBuilder()
  .loadDefaults()
  .build()

val fromHex = colorNames.getName("#facfea") // "Classic Rose"
val fromRGB = colorNames.getName(224, 224, 255) // "Stoic White"
val fromColor = colorNames.getName(Color(255, 219, 240)) // "Silky Pink"

Usage C# ⌨

C# usage is maintained through this library: vycdev/ColorNamesSharp Additional info can be found there, but basic usage is outlined below:

The library is available as a nuget package

Creating the instance

ColorNames colorNames = new ColorNamesBuilder()
  .Add("Best Blue", "#3299fe") // Add your own custom colors
  .LoadDefault() // Load the default color list
  .AddFromCsv("path/to/your/colorlist.csv") // Add a custom color list from a csv file
  .Build(); // Get a new ColorNames instance that includes all the colors you've added

Getting a fitting color name

NamedColor customNamedColor = new("Custom Named Color", 50, 153, 254);

// You can directly get the name of the color as a string
string colorNameFromHex = colorNames.FindClosestColorName("#facfea"); // Classic Rose
string colorNameFromRgb = colorNames.FindClosestColorName(224, 224, 255); // Stoic White
string colorNameFromNamedColor = colorNames.FindClosestColorName(customNamedColor); // Best Blue

// Or similarly you can get the NamedColor object
NamedColor namedColorFromHex = colorNames.FindClosestColorName("#facfea"); // Classic Rose
NamedColor namedColorFromRgb = colorNames.FindClosestColorName(224, 224, 255); // Stoic White
NamedColor namedColorFromNamedColor = colorNames.FindClosestColorName(customNamedColor); // Best Blue

// Or a random color
NamedColor randomColor = colorNames.GetRandomNamedColor();

Sources 🗒

Sources: Names 📇

• Thousands of user submissions Twitter / Google Docs / Github
• Wikipedia list of named colors (2018-02-23)
• Wada Sanzo's list of named colors
• CSS/HTML color names
• Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours
• ntc.js
• xkcd color survey list
• htmlcsscolor.com
• OSX Crayons
• Crayola crayon
• Japanese Twelve Level Cap and Rank System colors
• Thailand weekday colors
• Chinese heavenly creatures colors
• Military Paint
• Olympian god colors
• Model Color Paints: Vallejo
• Fictional Colors (2018-05-09)
• Non English Transliterations: Japanese , Mandarin , Hindi , Persian , Russian , Māori
• Multiple paint, print, nail polish, model paint color lists
• Curated Machine Learning names from Matt DesLauriers and Nathan Kjer
• Team Fortress 2 paint colors

Contributors 🦑

• meodai Initiator, maintainer, name creator &, tooling
• Nirazul Name creator & tooling
• Bathos Tooling
• Metafizzy Logo 💖

Costs & Sponsors

Sponsors

Past Sponsors

• Colorful Dots 500USD
• krissymashinsky.com 300USD
• color.museum 100CHF
• @tunnckoCore 50USD
• Myriam Aerne 20CHF
• Amin 15USD
• neverything 25USD/month

Project Costs USD

One-Time

Item	Expenditure
Logo by Metafizzy	800

Periodic

Item	Expenditure
Color Name API Server	264.60/year
color.pizza domain name	36.16/year
Cloudflare PRO Plan	240/year

Color Namers

Verena the naming overlord , Jess the name wizard , Syl , Stephanie Stutz , Simbiasamba , Jason Wilson , Inês João , Nick Niles , Qwhex , Ichatdelune , basgys , Shelina S. , Trevor Elia , cheesits456 , Sandhya Subram , BerylBucket , Jimmy Fitzback , TLZ , DarthTorus , Carrion , BlueChaos , nachtfunke , Sean Gibbons , Brantley Sibo

Disclaimer 👮🏾‍

In an effort to create a more inclusive and respectful environment, we strive to remove all offensive and racist names, as well as protected brand names, from our list. While we do our best to screen out such names, some may still slip through. If you come across any such names, please let us know so that we can remove them promptly.

Latest Color Names 🔖