...to wonder why some colours are really common surnames (white/black/brown/green) and others not?

[Justbackfromnewwine]

Okay maybe I know a Pink but no reds/yellows/blues/oranges/purples.

Why is that I wonder?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_(name)

Boyd means yellow.

The surname Rothschild, means the red sign. Which would have been put on the houses where the families lived.

How about scarlett, or is that just in Robin Hood

Agree that the most common surnames - White, Black, Brown, Green etc - would have referred to the place the person came from. According to Wikipedia, surnames have only been a "thing" for less than 1000 years. And it's easy to see how "John who bakes the bread" became John Baker and "Mary with the black hair" became Mary Black.

The orange thing as always fascinated me - orange in Spanish is "naranja". So when they were brought to the UK they would be "a narange". Over the years that became "an orange".

Also colours are in a lot of compound surnames - Whitworth, Whiteley, Whitford, Whittington, Blackford, Blackwell, Greening...

This is a fascinating thread!

I was at university with a girl whose surname was Pink. And at all the discussion about Jason Orange's surname - I assumed for years and years that he must have made it up!

I used to work with a very nice lady called Mrs Duck. Never heard of anyone called Chicken (but not disbelieving they exist!).

I have met a pair of Ducks and a Pigg.
I also know a Hailstone and know of a Snowball!

and a Blue - whoops

I always thought Rose was from Rosen/Rosenberg as I've known several Jewish families with that surname.

“I have discovered a brand new colour. Not something like Primrose Pink or Magnolia Nightshade or a shade of another colour, something absolutely new and original.
It really is amazing to look at”

Disquieted1 Maybe you’re a Terry Pratchett fan and I’ve missed it although you didn’t seem to bite at “octarine”, however, your “brand new colour” will be some sort of mix or shade of the regular colours. That’s just physics I am afraid.

(misses point of thread entirely)

Rudd is fairly common and most likely derived from red

My maiden name was Green and we did a project at school on where surnames came from. My research said it was someone with green eyes or possibly the person that lead the maypole dance at the beginning of spring as they wore all green.
I like that better than the village idiot connotations from a previous op!

I know a Blue. I thought he was having me on. I quite like it.

Would Rothschild have originally been pronounced more like rot-shield?

I find names so fascinating. I've met people with the surname Rainbow and Sunshine before. Can't get more colourful than that!

I thought oranges were first known as "Portingales"? That's what the Tudor reenactment people told me at a medieval fayre I went to recently.

MarklahMarklah Arabic and Turkish both call oranges portugals (not necessarily spelt like that!) A north African friend told me that it is because oranges come from Portugal.

The origin of Blewett is blue, possible from blue woolen cloth.

i think it comes from bloom, ie flowers

but that could be blu

Disquieted- I'm afraid that philodox already has a meaning!

Blumental is German not Latvian.
Blumen = flowers Tal = Valley

I once went to open a bank account with my university boyfriend. They asked him what his mother had been before she was Gray. “Green” he said.

KickAss - in England surnames started to be used post Norman Conquest (when we started to keep good, formal records of who owned what and where). I don't know about elsewhere - presumably a similar impetus?

Bike - I had a friend who was a King but married and became a Knight

I had a childhood friend who had surname strawberry