Why Many CSS Colors Have Goofy Names (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Take a look at the list of named colors within the CSS Color Module Level 4. The usual suspects are there, like 'red,' 'cyan,' and 'gold,' as well as some slightly more descriptive ones: 'lightgrey,' 'yellowgreen,' and 'darkslateblue.' But there are also some really odd names: 'burlywood,' 'dodgerblue,' 'blanchedalmond,' and more. An article at Ars walks through why these strange names became part of a CSS standard. Colors have been added to the standard piece by piece over the past 30 years — here's one anecdote: "The most substantial release, created by Paul Raveling, came in 1989 with X11R4. This update heralded a slew of light neutral tones, and it was a response to complaints from Raveling's coworkers about color fidelity. ... Raveling drew these names from an unsurprising source: the (now-defunct) paint company Sinclair Paints. It was an arbitrary move; after failing to receive sanctions from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which issued standards for Web color properties, Raveling decided to take matters into his own hands. He calibrated the colors for his own HP monitor. 'Nuts to ANSI & "ANSI standards,"' he complained."

Comments

They could fix everything

[LihTox]

by allowing user-defined colors in CSS. Not only could they offload the unwanted old names into a single stylesheet (legacycolors.css?), but it would be so much easier to adjust the color scheme of a website by changing a couple of definitions.

But I'm just an amateur; maybe that IS a CSS feature and I've missed it?

Re:They could fix everything

[squiggleslash]

It isn't already a feature, and something of that nature has been wanted for a long, long, time, though not limited to colo{u}rs.

There are a few CSS macro processors, such as SASS and Less.js, built to workaround this specific deficiency. What's amazing is that it's never been addressed by the W3C, despite being identified as a problem right from the start.

Some not so odd

[Nidi62]

"dodgerblue" of course refers to the LA Dodgers. Interestingly enough, according to Wikipedia, the color itself is not used on the uniforms of the Dodgers but is used throughout the stadium. Personally I pictured more of a darker blue than an azure because I assumed it was the color found on the uniforms, but I immediately made the connection between the color name and the baseball team.