why are some colours commonly found as surnames (white, brown, green) but not others (red, blue, yellow)

Question

And furthermore how does language play a part – I know red (rojas/rossi) is a Spanish and Italian surname but not English

In: 2480

Answer 1

This is just speculation, but could it be that those colors occur most frequently in nature and as a result there are lots of place names with those colors, and folks took their surname from a place name?