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

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”.