Names for paint colors

I never use the actual name of the paint when describing something.  My van is painted "sport red," which I think is a terrible name.  The van is not sporty, nor is it really red.  It's more of a cranberry color.

When I painted my living room, the colors I chose were called Rogue Blue and Gold Ink.  I call them Midnight Bruise and Avocado Vomit.  My grandmother loved Mauve and their entire living room was done that way.  Pappy called it "Seasick Purple."

I'm always disappointed by paint names, so I make up new ones. Does anyone else do that, or is it just me?

Midnight Bruise and Avocado Vomit:

Seasick Purple:

My wife always jokes that I can only see 10 colors: Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, white, grey, brown. I always call it whichever one of those is closest. I actually had to search to see what "mauve" was. I would just call that purple.

My classic Mini is painted "Sandy Beige". I can't improve on that.

My favorite car color name is "innocent blue" (non-US name for Miata 10th anniversary blue). I don't know what makes it innocent, but it makes me smile. Come to think of it, there's also a chaste white in the Miata lineup. Trying to tell us something, Mazda?

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

Seasick Purple looks like Mountbatten Pink.

I only ever learned colors from the crayola 8-pack. Other than that, I've used "baby E36 M3" to describe things in a wide array of green/brown/yellow. 

David Gerrold (he wrote the Star Trek episode "The trouble with Tribbles") said that changes to the script were put on differently colored pages. He said at the end they had to invent names of the colors they were using. I remember some of them. Lavender strobe, feckless orange, and unhappy purple. 

I enjoy the wild names automakers give their colors. My green 4runner was Imperial Jade Mica (so fancy!) and my current truck is Light Santa Fe Metallic and Medium Palomino (howdy pardner!). And of course the mopar colors have good names too.

Current car colors are all just varying shades of gray anyway, so it seems like a waste of time to give them exotic names.

The xB was "polar white" whenever it's get dirty I'd call it "Syracuse April" 

barefootskater (Shaun) said:

I only ever learned colors from the crayola 8-pack. Other than that, I've used "baby E36 M3" to describe things in a wide array of green/brown/yellow. 

Having grown up on a farm, my Mother often uses "calf-E36 M3 yellow."  When you first let the calves out to pasture and they start eating grass instead of feeding from mother, their poop is very much like my Avocado Vomit walls in color.

MoPar muscle car era paint names are the high water mark.

Tor-Red

Go-Mango

Panther Pink

Sublime green

Curious yellow

Plum Crazy purple

Someone referred to the metallic purple color on the roll bar and valve cover of my Miata as "Statutory  Grape"

When my ex-SWMBO and I first met, she had a 2001 Chevy Malibu in Light Driftwood Metallic, which was a fancy way of saying beige. The interior was called Neutral w/Spirit Cloth Seat Trim. I could never figure out the "Spirit" part of the color name because a beige Malipoo was about the furthest thing from spirited.

I loved the names of colors offered for the Pontiac Solstice:

A set of these Crayolas made their way into my house. I'll confess I felt stupid having it taken me a moment to figure it out. 

Generally, it's implied but never stated on the package or in the color names. 

So much almond. So much rose. 

My dad bought a first-gen Bronco which I later learned that the dark green color was called "Three Putt Green." Since it barfed out it's engine less than two years later I wondered if that was a little too on the nose.

NickD said:

Someone referred to the metallic purple color on the roll bar and valve cover of my Miata as "Statutory  Grape"

I have heard of that as a discarded color name from the old Mopar era.

Keith Tanner said:

NickD said:

Someone referred to the metallic purple color on the roll bar and valve cover of my Miata as "Statutory  Grape"

I have heard of that as a discarded color name from the old Mopar era.

It wouldn't surprise me. Mopar always liked to toe the line. They named a color after a very controversial film (Curious Yellow) and they gave a car a name that pissed of Christian groups and forced it to be renamed (Demon).

Appleseed said:

MoPar muscle car era paint names are the high water mark.

Tor-Red

Go-Mango

Panther Pink

Sublime green

Curious yellow

Plum Crazy purple

The Sublime Green I always called Nuclear Waste because of the glowing green color.

We all know the best car color was Minerva Blue on old 911s:

Nowadays all cars seem to be black, white, silver/gray, or maybe an ugly shade of burgundy if you're lucky.

Remember in the 90s when a bunch of manufacturers had the same awful shade of teal?

Championship White.  Perfect name!

In reply to infinitenexus :

Alaska Blue is better, but anyone can find their own favorite here:

https://www.rennbow.org/porsche-colors

And I'll give you Cobalt Blue:

Ford used to have a truck color called medium canyon red.  Which implies there was a light and dark canyon red.

Our 911 wears Ruby Red Metallic, a name Porsche has used several times yet with different paint codes. The original Ruby Red (no metallic) was used on the 356.

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Mazda has a really sick "candy apple" red recently. I am too lazy to look it up right now but man it is sweet. They also had a fantastic baby blue that Miatas wore for a while.