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32+ Common Color Names for Easy Reference

32+ Common Color Names for Easy Reference


Are you tired of the other kids at Summer Color Camp laughing at you because you thought chartreuse was a shade of pink? Still having nightmares about the time you called a Salmon colored dress Mauve? With our help you'll never call Azure, Aquamarine again and will be name dropping colors like they're hot potatoes.

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Our guide isn't an exact science, depending on our monitor color calibration, brightness and even how good our eyes are... we all see a slightly different color. So, we took the color names that are used most often and best guessed the appropriate colors based on web standards and common usage.

Ivory

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HEX: #FFFFF0

RGB: 255, 255, 240

CMYK: 1, 0, 6, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Ivory

          

Beige

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HEX: #F5F5DC

RGB: 245, 245, 220

CMYK: 1, 0, 24, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Beige

 

Wheat

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HEX: #F5DEB3

RGB: 245, 222, 179

CMYK: 4, 11, 32, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Wheat

          

Tan

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HEX: #D2B48C

RGB: 210, 180, 140

CMYK: 18, 28, 48, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Tan

 

Khaki

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HEX: #C3B091

RGB: 195, 176, 145

CMYK: 25, 28, 45, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Khaki

          

Silver

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HEX: #C0C0C0

RGB: 192, 192, 192

CMYK: 25, 20, 20, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Silver

 

Gray

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HEX: #808080

RGB: 128, 128, 128

CMYK: 52, 43, 43, 8

  Find Color Palettes Using Gray

          

Charcoal

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HEX: #464646

RGB: 70, 70, 70

CMYK: 67, 60, 58, 42

  Find Color Palettes Using Charcoal

 

Navy Blue

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HEX: #000080

RGB: 0, 0, 128

CMYK: 100, 98, 14, 17

  Find Color Palettes Using Navy Blue

          

Royal Blue

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HEX: #084C9E

RGB: 8, 76, 158

CMYK: 100, 80, 4, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Royal Blue

 

Medium Blue

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HEX: #0000CD

RGB: 0, 0, 205

CMYK: 52, 43, 43, 8

  Find Color Palettes Using Medium Blue

          

Azure

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HEX: #007FFF

RGB: 0, 127, 255

CMYK: 77, 51, 0, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Azure

 

Cyan

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HEX: #00FFFF

RGB: 0, 255, 255

CMYK: 52, 0, 13, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Cyan

          

Aquamarine

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HEX: #7FFFD4

RGB: 127, 255, 212

CMYK: 40, 0, 30, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Aquamarine

 

Teal

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HEX: #008080

RGB: 0, 128, 128

CMYK: 86, 31, 49, 8

  Find Color Palettes Using Teal

          

Forest Green

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HEX: #228B22

RGB: 34, 139, 34

CMYK: 47, 0, 100, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Forest Green

 

Olive

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HEX: #808000

RGB: 128, 128, 0

CMYK: 30, 0, 100, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Olive

          

Chartreuse

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HEX: #7FFF00

RGB: 127, 255, 0

CMYK: 47, 0, 100, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Chartreuse

 

Lime

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HEX: #BFFF00

RGB: 191, 255, 0

CMYK: 30, 0, 100, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Lime

          

Golden

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HEX: #FFD700

RGB: 255, 215, 0

CMYK: 1, 13, 100, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Golden

 

Goldenrod

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HEX: #DAA520

RGB: 218, 165, 32

CMYK: 15, 35, 100, 1

  Find Color Palettes Using Goldenrod

          

Coral

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HEX: #FF7F50

RGB: 255, 127, 80

CMYK: 0, 63, 72, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Coral

 

Salmon

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HEX: #FA8072

RGB: 250, 128, 114

CMYK: 0, 63, 49, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Salmon

          

Hot Pink

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HEX: #FC0FC0

RGB: 252, 15, 192

CMYK: 10, 87, 0, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Hot Pink

 

Fuchsia

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HEX: #FF77FF

RGB: 255, 119, 255

CMYK: 16, 57, 0, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Fuschia

          

Puce

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HEX: #CC8899

RGB: 204, 136, 153

CMYK: 19, 54, 25, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Puce

 

Mauve

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HEX: #E0B0FF

RGB: 224, 176, 255

CMYK: 27, 41, 0, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Mauve

          

Lavender

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HEX: #B57EDC

RGB: 181, 126, 220

CMYK: 35, 55, 0, 0

  Find Color Palettes Using Lavender

 

Plum

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HEX: #843179

RGB: 132, 49, 121

CMYK: 55, 95, 20, 4

  Find Color Palettes Using Plum

          

Indigo

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HEX: #4B0082

RGB: 75, 0, 130

CMYK: 86, 100, 11, 8

  Find Color Palettes Using Indigo

 

Maroon

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HEX: #800000

RGB: 128, 0, 0

CMYK: 29, 100, 100, 38

  Find Color Palettes Using Maroon

          

Crimson

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HEX: #DC143C

RGB: 220, 20, 60

CMYK: 7, 100, 78, 1

  Find Color Palettes Using Crimson

 

Do You Agree or Disagree?

The above colors are based on common use in web standards... Do you think our Salmon is a bit too Peach? Maybe our Forest Green is a bit too Grass? Show us your suggestions for commonly used color names.


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38 Comments
Showing 1 - 30 of 38 Comments

lizcrimson

i think the chartreuse is too limey. mauve is too purpley - it needs to be browned down a bit. (and lavender is spelled with an e...)
my thoughts:
chartreuse
or this
Larry
and
mauvelite
or this one
Soft Mauve
Team

COLOURlover

P.S. For those who are now ready to be "name dropping colors like they’re hot potatoes" and were wondering what a Hot Potato's colors would look like:
Hot Potatoes

lizcrimson

the puce above seems more the colour of the mauve i chose. here's my version of puce. its supposed to be the colour of a flea...
puce
from wikipedia, "The colour puce is usually defined with adjectives such as "dark", "deep", "intense" and even "brilliant".

retsof

What do you mean, "common"? Is this the kind of website where you should be asking that? After all, we've got about 100 colors in here named for "slime".

DoYouHave The Slime?
Team

COLOURlover

From the Digg comments "I was reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this evening and came across the color "heliotrope". It wasn't on this list, but Wikipedia had it, of course. They also noted the "heliotrope" reference in the book."

heliotrope

liddle_r

Well, I like magenta and it isn't in the list above so am adding it!

Magenta
Team

COLOURlover

Also... as noticed the Cyan listed above is the Web Standard... True Cyan is:
circus 041

manekineko

great post!

One weird thing I read the other day is that some colors cannot exist on computer screens because of limits to the technology...

color limit article

wayfinder

I think you got some details wrong: Golden - this looks more like a peach actually. Gold is far less saturated. Hot Pink has too much blue, pink should always have MORE red than blue in it. And you misspelled Fuchsia.

greeblemonkey

Great post! Recently was turned on to the site and love it.
Team

COLOURlover

@restof & others: The colors chosen for this post were ones that have commonly associated HEX values attached to them... I totally agree that the colors connected to the names don't always match up, but what we wanted to do was build a little conversation about the common names of colors and to have a little fun seeing what others thought...

I honestly think a Crimson Red is a bit less pink, sort of like:
exciting!

theirongiant

The Cyan is way too bright for print. Also, your CMYK values for Charcoal are the same as Silver. You might want to check those.

shellab

I think Chartreuse is more like:
Chartreuse

manekineko

these main names are pretty well defined already, aren't they?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_naming
Team

COLOURlover

@manekineko: Well, yes... that is where we got a lot of the "standard" HEX values for the post from... but as you can see, not everyone agrees ;)

manekineko

hehe ok fair enough :)

retsof

There is a set of "standard" web color names. HOWEVER, many gripe that they are very arbitrary in range and distribution. They get around that by allowing you to define any RGB hex as a color. Yes, very bright yellow and things like that are out of the RGB gamut which is triangle shaped. Too bad. We've got what we've got for the moment.

lizcrimson

could it be that we all disagree partly because of our different monitors? i just had to replace mine and the new one is like night and day in difference from the old one. my colours are now soooooo much prettier, and i thought they were okay before.

i agree about the crimson, darius. i think crimson is a deeper colour. the one you chose is a good one.

i have heliotrope in my yard and keith's colour is very close, but mine are a bit darker.

i still think chartreuse should be yellower.

i like your magenta, liddle_r, but i think to be called magenta it should be pinker. something like this:
magneto

great discussion, by the way.

and what does ftw mean? tr67 wrote "puce ftw"
Team

lizcrimson

thanks. i thought it was just wtf backwards...

liddle_r

I agree with Darius about the Crimson. And the Chartreuse that shellab made looks more right to me than the one at the top.

But, I am sticking with my magenta! To me magneto looks too pink. So, it must just be a definition of what we think magenta is. I am sure my definition is coming from the crayola crayon box! Probably the root of all my color sense comes from there!

Very interesting for sure!

For me, the following is more of a forest green:

forest green

The one above seem more like a kelly green (albeit a dark kelly green).

liddle_r

And just what color is ochre... I named a color that today but I don't think I was right.

ruecian

@liddle_r --

Ochre is sort of an orange-yellow, or, as restof has it, the colour of yams:

I yam what I yam.

Linsomnia

I've always thought puce to be a brownish purple. I know thereare other discriptions of this color but I like the deep dark purple/brown. I've made a few l palettes for puce. Here are a couple:

fromgroundtobloom

myaddiction

dogleish

Navy Blue and Charcoal aren't dark enough, and Crimson is too pink. IMHO. :)

lilytree

I'm pretty sure this is referring to the names of colors you can put into html, without needing to use hex code. This is me saying that the font color is "forestgreen" Most amusing I think though are the names that are off the beaten track, like This is the color of "demon", while this is "fire" Of course, the names can display differently on different browsers, which is why it's better to use hex.

lizcrimson

liddle_r, my magenta (magneto is what my students call it) comes from the tempera paint we use in school, but also the process ink i used as a printer. that magenta may be a bit darker, but not as dark as yours. of course it could all be our monitors. i'm on a different computer now and it all looks very different.

violetsprite

i always thought mauve and Fuchsia had more red tones in them than blue tones

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