Unique Color Names – Our 30+ Curated List

There are an infinite number of colors, so it is no wonder that many of them have unique color names and rich histories. Many colors that you see every day are even trademarked under unusual names. We have included some cool and interesting colors and a look into their histories. You might even see a few you have never heard of!

How Colors Are Named

Many different qualities can make a color unique such as an interesting history, the unusualness of the shade, or even the name of the shade itself and its meaning. While there are many ways that colors get their names, they are often named after the plants, animals, or other things that they resemble, for example, the color orange was given its name when it was used to describe the orange fruit.

Colors are also named after the pigments that were historically used to create them, how they compare to other already named colors, as well as the feelings or emotions associated with that color.

The Most Unique Color Names Overview Table

Unique Neutral Color Names

Neutrals include various hues of white, black, and gray, as well as brown and other earth tones. While these colors have a reputation for being plain or uninteresting, there are many neutral colors with cool color names.

Black Hues With Unique Names

Our first unique color name is vantablack. This color’s name is actually an acronym for Vertically Aligned NanoTube Array Black. This color does not only have a cool name but is also considered to be the blackest man-made substance and absorbs over 99% of the light that shines on it. Vantablack is a pigment coating that was developed in 2014 and was originally designed for space travel to prevent glare on telescope lenses.

Eigengrau is another black with a unique name. Eigengrau is a German name for a gray-black meaning “own gray”. It got this name as it is interestingly reported to be the color you see when you close your eyes in a dark room or at night. Because of this, the color is also known as eigenlicht, which is Dutch for “own light”, as well as brain gray or dark light.

White Hues with Unique Names

Alabaster is a pale, yellowish-white color named after a soft rock used for carving, with its name popularized by Shakespeare. Sand dollar is a white with a red undertone, named after the flat skeletons of sea urchins collected for their unique shape.

Earth Tones with Unique Names

Sepia is another unique color named after a sea creature, this time the common cuttlefish. The reddish-brown color is named after the pigment derived from its ink sac, which has been used for writing and drawing from the ancient Roman and Greek times until as late as the 19th century. Sepia toning is used in photography to change the look of black-and-white prints into different shades and tones of brown similar to the ink’s color through a chemical process.

Mummy brown, also known as Egyptian brown, is a color not only with a unique name but an intriguing history as well. Between the 18^th and early 20^th centuries, many people traveled to Egypt and harvested dust from mummies and mixed them with other paint to create the aptly named color. The color is a rich brown similar to burnt umber. Mummy brown is not only one of the most unique but also rare color names as true mummy brown stopped being produced in the mid-1960s when the company producing it ran out of mummies.

Unique Red Color Names

Reds are often used for their striking and memorable effect and are associated with powerful symbols that are fiery, lively and brave. Dragon’s blood is a cool color name for a bright, cool red-toned color. This color can sometimes appear almost purple as it contains some blue pigment. Unlike mummy brown, dragon’s blood is not made from the blood of a dragon but is rather extracted as resin from the rattan palm and has been used as varnish, dye, and even in medicine in the past.

Red was a very important color in ancient Rome where it represented power and courage. Imperial red was officially recognized in 1914 and is the name given to a color that closely resembles the red used in these times. As the name suggests, fire engine red is the name given to the signature bright red that you see on fire engines. This red makes the fire engines stand out from their surroundings making them highly visible. For this reason, it is also used on many other emergency vehicles such as ambulances and rescue helicopters.

Unique Orange Color Names

Orange hues were the first colors that early humans used for cave painting over 100 000 years ago. Bittersweet is one of the many orange colors with a unique name. The name is used to describe a reddish-orange that resembles the color of the berries of the American false bittersweet vine. The word “bittersweet” also refers to pleasure that is clouded by pain, which adds another layer to the distinctiveness of the color’s name.

Safety orange, also known as blaze orange, is a high-visibility orange that is commonly used across a variety of settings where caution or special attention is needed. Safety orange is used on high-visibility clothing, on some emergency vehicles such as ambulances, and in warming notices amongst other things. International orange is also used to set objects apart from their surroundings; however, it has a much deeper and more muted tone. International orange not only has an unusual name but is also used in unusual places such as in the aerospace industry and on the famous Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco to increase its visibility to ships in fog.

Unique Yellow Color Names

There are many yellows with names as vibrant and unique as the color. Canary yellow is a very bright and sunny yellow that got its name from the small songbird of the same name. Interestingly, the notepad company Post-It even has its own special trademarked tone of canary yellow that they use in its branding and products.

Medallion yellow’s unusual name comes from the recognizable yellow color of taxis that owned a medallion permit, which allowed their drivers to operate within cities such as New York City. You can still see the color on taxis today proudly showing off their medallion status.

Ochre is one of the oldest colors in the world, being found as far back as 17,000 BCE in cave paintings. Back then various shades of ocher were made by combining the clay-like substance with other materials, such as berries. More recently ochre was famously used by Van Gogh in the 19^th century in many of his paintings and continues to be a popular color among many artists today.

Unique Green Color Names

Green is synonymous with nature and life and there are many unique green color names. Shamrock is a vibrant green that gets its interesting name from the green of a young spring. This color is also known as Irish green and is a common symbol of Ireland, appearing in both their flag and even in the team colors for the Boston Celtics.

Green of Greece or verdigris was one of the earliest manufactured pigments in the world. This yellowish green was made by ancient Greeks by oxidizing copper over hot vinegar until the green pigment formed on its surface. It has been used in a variety of statues throughout the world, but the most famous example is the Statue of Liberty.

Another green color with an interesting name, although not as long of a history, is hunter green. Like verdigris, hunter green is a yellowish green, however, it is much darker. This color was worn as camouflage by English hunters in the 19^th century and remains a very popular color for horse tackle today.

Unique Blue Color Names

Despite being considered a primary color today, blue is one of the youngest colors in the world. It is so relatively young that even the ancient Greeks, who lived over 2,000 years ago, did not even have a name for the color.

The color name lapis lazuli sounds almost as beautiful as the intense blue stone it was named after. The stone was so rare and sought after in the Middle Ages that it was considered more precious than gold. The ancient Egyptians valued lapis lazuli so highly that the blue became an integral part of their artworks and clothing.

Delft blue is another color that gets its unique name from valuable treasures. This pale dark blue is the signature color of Delftware, which is a Dutch tin-glazed earthenware that is made in Delft, Netherlands. Turkish blue is a unique color that is thought to ward off evil intentions and is a prominent color in the Evil Eye symbol. This symbol is most often portrayed as concentric circles that create the shape of an eye with Turkish blue near the center.

Unique Purple Color Names

Over the centuries, purple has been associated with royalty and wisdom. Tyrian purple is the color of a natural pigment from ancient Tyre that is secreted by different species of sea snails. The process of harvesting the dye is both complex and expensive and as such, items dyed in this color have become associated with fortune and power.

Helio is a light purple, similar to lavender, with pink undertones. It was named after the heliotrope flower which has petals with similar coloring. It is a popular color for Cambridge glass, which is an opaque glass that comes in a variety of purples. Another purple hue with a unique name is cordovan. Cordovan is a deep purple burgundy and closely resembles the color of certain leathers. This is no coincidence, as this purple is the signature color of cordovan leather, which was first produced in Córdoba, Spain.

The exact color of mauve is still contested and there are many different pink and purple shades that are considered to be mauve. Traditionally, mauve is a pale purple-gray color that was named after the mallow flower but mauves with pinkish rose tones are also common. The color was named in 1856, however, its popularity exploded in the 1890s, which came to be known as the “Mauve Decade”.

Unique Trademarked Colors Names

There are many colors that have been trademarked by brands or companies under names that are unique. The luxury jewelry company Tiffany & Co. has its own special blue called Tiffany blue. Light green was mixed with blue to create this signature hue in 1845 by founder Charles Tiffany, and the color is used in all their branding and packaging.

Barbie pink is another recognizable color used for branding by the Barbie toy franchise. The magenta-pink color was developed to convey a sense of whimsy and youth to attract girls to the dolls and the brand.

Coca-Cola red is a trademarked color we see almost every day. Coca-Cola started out in 1886 as a medicated drink mixed with sparkling water and slowly developed into the well-known carbonated drink we see today. The founder of Coca-Cola chose red as its signature color because it symbolized success as red was one of the more expensive colors to use at the time. The Coca-Cola Company also created the Santa Clause that many associate with Christmas today, depicting him in a marketing campaign as a jolly man with a beard and Coca-Cola red suit.

The University of Texas and the Texas Longhorns trademarked their own particular shade of burnt orange in 1966, known as Pantone. The university wanted to establish a uniform color for its fans, and this went on to become one of the most influential uses of burnt orange and greatly increased its popularity. The exact shade of these trademarked colors is a closely guarded secret, however, we have included some similar colors.

As you now know, there are many colors across the spectrum with cool and unique names. We hope you have enjoyed this look into the history behind these colors’ interesting names, and maybe you have even discovered a new color you did not know about before or even just a fun fact you can share with your friends.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Makes a Color Unique?

There are many things that can make a color unique. Unique colors often have an association with cool or curious objects, plants, or animals. They may also have an interesting history or have some significance to people or a place. The actual name of the color could also just be absurd or intriguing, or the color itself is eye-catching making it unique.

What Are Rare Color Names?

Mummy brown and Vantablack are both rare color names. The original Mummy brown was made using dust from actual mummified bodies and so true mummy brown cannot be made today. Vantablack color name is actually an acronym meaning Vertically Aligned Nano Tube Array Black. The color is very expensive to manufacture, so it is not available to the public, making it very difficult to get one’s hands on it.

How Are Colors Named?

While there are no rules when it comes to naming colors, there are many tried and true methods for finding the perfect name. The first method is to pick a name that describes the color. You can either do this by comparing it to another existing color, for example, light blue, or based on something that is similar to your color, for example, canary yellow. If the color makes you feel a particular emotion or reminds you of something special to you, you can also incorporate that into your color name.

Charlene Lewis( Content Creator and Creativity Writer )

In 2005, Charlene completed her Wellness Diplomas in Therapeutic Aromatherapy and Reflexology from the International School of Reflexology and Meridian Therapy. She worked for a company offering corporate wellness programs for a couple of years, before opening up her own therapy practice. It was in 2015 that a friend, who was a digital marketer, asked her to join her company as a content creator, and this is where she found her excitement for writing.

Since joining the content writing world, she has gained a lot of experience over the years writing on a diverse selection of topics, from beauty, health, wellness, travel, and more. Due to various circumstances, she had to close her therapy practice and is now a full-time freelance writer. Being a creative person, she could not pass up the opportunity to contribute to the Art in Context team, where is was in her element, writing about a variety of art and craft topics. Contributing articles for over three years now, her knowledge in this area has grown, and she has gotten to explore her creativity and improve her research and writing skills.

Charlene Lewis has been working for artincontext.org since the relaunch in 2020. She is an experienced writer and mainly focuses on the topics of color theory, painting and drawing.

Learn more about Charlene Lewis and the Art in Context Team.