What’s in the name after all, they say. There actually lies a lot of significance in a name, since in most cases a lot of effort and thought is given to choosing a name. Some names are very common, but some are very unique, others outright hilarious and odd.
Here we will have a look at some unusual names given to colours, and I am sure you probably haven’t heard of these before. The list is too long, but we have chosen some exceptionally unique ones for your amusement.
Australien: Read it again … and you will realise the difference in spelling and so the pronunciation. Inspired by the rusty colour of the rocks and deserts of the Australian outback, the name ‘australien’ was used by dressmakers and fashion houses in late Victorian England for a deep orange colour.
Absolute zero: Honestly speaking, when reading the term ‘absolute zero’, the number 0 comes to my mind but here, this is the name given to a shade of blue.
The shade rests somewhere between vibrant and soft, since it isn’t as deep as midnight blue, but is also not as pale as baby blue. It is a mixture of blue and green that contains no red.
Banan: Hmm… of course, the colour of the ripe banana, that is banan.
Drunk tank pink: The colour is the bright shade of pink, it has been the focus of various studies and researches, for its soothing and calming effects on human temperament. This particular colour is also used in some prisons around the world in order to keep the inmates relaxed and to promote non-violent behaviour.
Falu: Falun is the name of a small city in Sweden; it is famous for its copper mining industry. Since the mid-16th century, many of the wooden homes, barns, outhouses and other buildings in and around Falun have been traditionally painted a deep rust-red colour known as ‘falu’, which is manufactured from the iron-rich waste materials left over from the mines.
Labrador: If you are thinking about this cute breed of dog, then you are wrong! Labrador is actually a shade of the blue that takes its name from the mineral labradorite, a blueish form of feldspar (form of minerals).
Annatto: The lipstick plant — a small tree, Bixa orellana, native to Central and South America produces annatto, a natural orange dye. Seeds from the plant are contained in a pod surrounded with a bright red pulp. Currently, annatto is used to colour butter, cheese and cosmetics.
Fulvous: While fulvous is considered a shade of brown, it appears more as a dark orange. Fulvous is made of mostly red, a bit of green and no blue. Lighter versions of this colour definitely fall into the orange scale, while darker shades become deep browns.
Vantablack, blackest black: Vantablack is known as the darkest man made pigment. The colour which absorbs almost 100 percent of visible light, was invented by Surrey Nanosystems for space exploration purposes.
The special production process and unavailability of vantablack to the general public makes it the rarest colour ever. It now exists as a coating used in deep space imaging, automotive sensing, optical systems, and art. Some of its most notable properties include ultra-low reflectance, UV absorption, and high thermal shock resistance.
Vantablack’s visual effect is quite striking. Rather than a painted surface, objects coated in vantablack look two-dimensional.
Vantablack absorbs so much light that no spectrometer can accurately determine what percentage it actually takes in.
In 2016, sculptor and installation artist Anish Kapoor bought exclusive artistic rights to this world’s blackest black colour, resulting in widespread controversy among artists and a longstanding feud with Stuart Semple.
Stuart Semple’s pinkest pink: After the creation and subsequent development of a vantablack, other artists were upset that this colour was being kept from them; however, artist Stuart Semple, decided to respond in turn. Semple created the pinkest pink pigment and made it available to everyone except Kapoor.
