Most colors found in craft store aisles are named along the lines of lime green or charcoal. However, when putting stocking data into the computers this last week, I found some interesting color names that made me stop for a moment and wonder, "who thought these names were a good idea?"
I draw from brands such as Americana Chalky Finish acrylic paint, Ranger Distress ink pads, and Delta Ceramcoat acrylic paint. These are not brands you will remember unless you are an artist, but the name of some of these colors will be sure to stick with you. The odd color names seem to fall into a few categories when it comes to their descriptions. They are as follows:
Locations
Delta Ceramcoat paint seems to have a problem when it comes to throwing a location onto the front of a color rather than describing the shade of the color. What’s the difference between "Williamsburg Blue" and "Cape Cod Blue?" Both are basically the color of jeans.
What differentiates purple from "Bahama Purple?" "Indiana Rose" isn’t even a shade of a rose, it is ivory. These colors seem like someone wanted to go on a world trip and decided to put their vacation locations into their paint names. Here are a few more examples of them:
Tahiti Blue
Moroccan Red
Caribbean
Tropic Bay
Bridgeport Grey
Adjectives
Here we have a compilation of vague descriptions that are supposed to be colors? Some are easy to guess, like "Honor" being navy blue. But what about "Bestow?" Would you have guessed it to be lime green? Americana Chalky Finish paint has a whole collection filled with colors like these, such as "Whisper," "Heritage," and "Yesteryear." This brand isn’t the only culprit to do it either. Some more are as follows:
Hope
Enchanted
Territorial Beige (how can a color be territorial?)
Nouns
These are by far my favorite of all the crazy names people can give colors. They are just random items and you get to guess what they are supposed to mean. Ranger Distress ink pads are the best culprit of this.
"Shabby Shutters" is the object of choice that they have randomly assigned to a moss green color. The most ironic of their colors is called "Peeled Paint," in which it in no way says what paint color it refers to, and is itself ink not paint. Some other such wonderful names are:
Broken China
Weathered Wood (actually grey-blue, not brown for some reason)
Tumbled Glass
Honestly, I don’t know why people can’t just say light purple and lavender, rather than something like "Nepal Soft Music." However, my coworkers and I do enjoy making jokes about the colors on a daily basis.
The best has been saved for last. Among all the other skin tone names, such as ivory, almond, and tan, there is a hidden gem: Santa's Flesh. Thank you to whoever decided to name that color, I laugh every time I see it.
