And furthermore how does language play a part – I know red (rojas/rossi) is a Spanish and Italian surname but not English
In: 2480
In Spanish I’ve met:
Rojas
Negrón (Big black?)
Blanco (White)
Laverde (The Green one?)
But no Marrón.
No idea why that is.
Color surnames in English are most commonly derived from physical traits such as hair color, complexion, or clothing.
Gingers and ruddy faced people were most likely to be called Red (aka Redd, still in common use) since red clothing in the Middle Ages were a sign of wealth and status, and those folks already had a distinctive family lineage and didn’t need a made up name. By the way, Russell is also tied to the color red, and is quite common.
Blue hair doesn’t really exist, and blue-dyed clothing would have also been an expensive luxury out of the reach of commoners.
Yellow is the interesting one since you’d think anyone blonde would be called it. But they were probably called white. Remember, silver and gray were also used referring to hair colors as well. So really, anyone pale could be a white. And anyone Dark could be a black. And again, no bright yellow clothes for commoners.
Different languages/cultures use different colors. Most are based on appearance, used to describe someone that stuck.
Red, Blue, and Yellow are also last names, they’re just not as common everywhere. There are apparently about 2,4 million people with the family name Yellow, although it seems to be more common in South Africa than in the US or UK. There are even some people called Purple, just not very many.
Then there are all the translations and variations, old spelling and such. Blue, Bleu, Bloo, Blau, Red, Reed, Reid, Redde, Rot, Roth, etc. “Bowie” apparently comes from gaelic “buidhe”, meaning “yellow”.
I have an American friend whose last name is Azure. So, they exist, just not as commonly. I wonder why now too. Thanks for that.
Radcliff means red cliff and Read/reade came from red.
Bowie is an angelized last name from a Scottish last name means yellow.
There is a last name Blue that was originally used probably for someone who has blue eyes. There is about 8 people for every 100,000 in the US with that last name.
Blue is usually one of the last colors that a language makes a name for so there are less “blue” last names in other languages.
You can look up surnames on [behind the surname](https://surnames.behindthename.com/names/meaning/yellow)
Blue and Yellow last names are found in Chinese cultures, Blue being much more rare. Not familiar with pinyin so won’t try to attempt to spell them.🤣
Source: someone who’s lived in Taiwan for the past 20 years
My family is descended from a long line of Scottish immigrants with the surname Blue. They settled in North Carolina originally.
Some names were job related. Mr Black was the Blacksmith. Green was the farmer or grocer, White was the Chemist/Doctor, etc. Not sure what Brown would be…
I’m pretty sure my granddad just went with the Whitest name he could think of getting off The Boat in 1947 and he wasn’t a very creative man.
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