What's the Longest Color Name in English?
If you stick to one-word color names, 'aquamarine' tops the list at 10 characters. Allow compound color names — the kind paint companies use — and 'cornflower blue', 'periwinkle blue', and even longer descriptive names take over. Here's the ranked list of the 15 longest common color names. To count characters in any name yourself, paste it into our Character Counter or Letter Counter.
A Quick Background
Color naming is partly objective (specific wavelengths) and partly cultural. Industrial color systems (Pantone, RAL) use thousands of names. The list below sticks to colors that appear in standard English dictionaries and design palettes.
Top 15 Longest Color Names (Ranked)
| # | Name | Characters |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cornflower blue | 15 |
| 2 | Periwinkle blue | 15 |
| 3 | Burnt sienna | 12 |
| 4 | Burnt umber | 11 |
| 5 | Chartreuse | 10 |
| 6 | Aquamarine | 10 |
| 7 | Periwinkle | 10 |
| 8 | Turquoise | 9 |
| 9 | Vermilion | 9 |
| 10 | Lavender | 8 |
| 11 | Sapphire | 8 |
| 12 | Cerulean | 8 |
| 13 | Magenta | 7 |
| 14 | Emerald | 7 |
| 15 | Crimson | 7 |
Fun Facts
- 💡Pantone's color name with the most characters: 'Pantone 7547 C — Mediterranean Sand' (37 characters).
- 💡The longest CSS named color is 'lightgoldenrodyellow' at 20 characters — that's the actual color name in the CSS spec.
- 💡'Mauve' is the shortest fancy color name in English (5 characters) — coined by chemist William Perkin in 1856.
- 💡The Vantablack pigment (named after Surrey Nanosystems) absorbs 99.965% of visible light and is one of the darkest substances ever made.
- 💡Welsh has a famous 14-letter color word for 'blue-grey-green' (glas) that describes both the sea and grass — depending on context.
Count Characters in Anything
Want to count characters in any word, sentence, or paragraph? Our Character Counter gives you instant stats — including letter-only counts, word counts, and reading time.
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More Word Fun
What's the Longest Fruit Name in English?
The longest common fruit name in English is 'passion fruit' at 12 characters — but obscure tropical fruits run much longer. See our ranked list.