What’s in a Name?
Color names: I always wondered who gets the delightful job of naming colors. You know, one’s that are labeled on the corner of paint samples at the hardware store, the stick of a colored pencil or stamped on the end of a paint tube. Names like Exotic Honey, Desert Glow, Artesian Water, Lunar Eclipse, Blackberry Harvest, Mellow Root, Bear Rug, Fairy Wings or Interlude. I stole my first paint sample when I was waiting for my dad at the hardware store - I was about 8 years old. Of course it wasn’t stealing, they are free samples, but I felt like I had something worth stealing and I wasn’t exactly pocketing it so that I could decide if it went with the window trim. My heart soared knowing I had a little square of Moon Mist (or whatever it was named). Would the colors evoke the same feeling that this was truly something special if the samples hadn’t been accompanied by inventive titles? Probably – I would probably invent my own, and I sometimes do. Who gets to decide what color fairy wings are, what moon mist looks like or what piece of the sky represents desert glow? Whoever they are, they market these colors by labeling them with their own 1 to 3 word story. Yet there can be no denying that colors often leave their own story. Colors are at once universal and individual. Lunar Eclipse might be First Kiss to one, End of the Ocean to another. Red Tomato might be Prom Dress or Field of Tulips.
