What's In a (Color) Name?

A recent Substack post by Lisa in Colour got me remembering my job at the "panty factory" (surface designer for an underwear and loungewear company). 

six packs of prints and solids were typical
this combo sold at Costco US and Canada in 2008

Presentations for buyers looked like this:

sometime in the approval process, the Colorado Clay turned into Green
and the packing order got flipped

As you can see, the prints and solids were given names, to aid communication

I worked in Illustrator, and had a massive swatch panel:

And almost every color had a name!

They needed to be "enticing" names, to not repel the buyers!

If it was a Pantone standard, I would use Pantone's name.

The others? I would scour color charts on Google Images. Or think of flowers. Or maritime things. Or...

If you need a color name for a project, feel free to use one of mine!