Stirring the imagination

Calamine pink or Dead Salmon? What’s behind paint names

Ever wonder how paint colors get their names? If you’re shopping for pink, say, you’ll find dozens of shades referencing roses, bubblegum and shells. There are some extraevocative names like Calamine and Dead Salmon. And what about a pink called Harajuku Morning? Modern Love?

Names can sway a person, says New York designer Daun Curry. “We once had a client choose one paint color over another because the name was Peace and Happiness,” she says.

More often, we pick a shade because we like it, says color consultant Debra Kling of New York, and

“the names’ associations serve to augment our feelings about the hues.”

She warns clients that paints when applied can look very different from their names: Creams, especially, easily veer into yellow territory, even when there’s no hint of that hue in their name.

Natalie Ebel, co-founder of the direct-to-consumer paint company Backdrop — which is behind Harajuku Morning and Modern Love — says that choosing the right names for paint colors is essential.

“We encourage customers to not just paint their walls, but create their backdrop,” she says. “So each name was chosen to evoke an emotional connection; we were inspired by real people, places, things and moods.”

Farrow & Ball is known for creative naming; their latest Colour By Nature palette, made in collaboration with London’s Natural History Museum, was inspired by Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours, an 1814 guide that crossreferences hues with markings and colorations found in nature. Scotch Blue, for example, suggests both the throat of a blue titmouse and copper ore.

Time and place also provide inspiration, says Farrow & Ball’s color consultant Joa Studholme.

“Occasionally, the paint name comes almost before the color. Plummett was mixed after an afternoon spent fishing on the river, where the color of the lead used to weight the fisherman’s line was a thing of such beauty that it just begged to be added to the Farrow & Ball palette,” she says.

Studholme shares the backstories on two Farrow & Ball pinks, Calamine and Dead Salmon:

BENJAMIN MOORE Benjamin Moore’s 2020 Color of the Year is First Light, a dreamy, soft shade of pink.

EMILY GILBERT Room designer Daun Curry says a client once chose the color Peace and Happiness because they liked the name.

BACKDROP Harajuku Morning is “bright, airy and fun,” says Backdrop co-founder Natalie Ebel.