Color Name Survey

Posted byRandall 369 Comments on Color Name Survey

I’d like your help for a color name survey!  The survey shows you colors, and you type a name (word or phrase) you might use for that color.  The names can be as broad or specific as you want.  The survey is here:

http://aram.xkcd.com/color/

My friend Finn (relsqui on #xkcd) wrote the frontend. I’m doing the analysis, though I won’t go too deeply into the details or purpose (to the extent that it has one) for now so as not to bias peoples’ answers.  Of course, RGB is a small and relative color space which varies depending on the device displaying it, so this survey has its limits, but it’s produced some cool data so far.

If any of  you want to help, you can fill out a few quick questions (don’t worry if you don’t know the answers—they’re highly optional and just help with calibration) and then come up with color names.  There’s no end to the survey; the more you answer, the better the data.  Thanks!

P.S. I’ve added a few much-requested prints and two new posters (Movie Narrative Charts and Gravity Wells) in the xkcd store.  The prints of Comic #150 (Grownups) are marked backordered right now while I replace a batch that was printed wrong, but they should be shipping again within a week.

369 replies on “Color Name Survey”

  1. I love colors! This reminds me of a website that lets you look at color gradients and cycle through colors in the same family using a command line interface. It’s really fun (and kind of addictive) if you like looking at lots of pretty colors.

    I think it’s useful for web designers too, but I like just playing around on it.

    The site is: http://hexpreview.com/

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  2. hahaha im the guy who misspelled beige! Im sorry I make you weep for our gender, ive always been a science guy, not really one for english. Anyway interesting to see the results, im a huge fan, keep up the good work!

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  3. I would be interesting to do a survey that asks people to differentiate between to colors, putting them together and asking them if they are different or not. That way you can prove if women see more colors than men.

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  5. This was as mesmerizing as watching my dvd player oval bounce around, waiting for it to hit the corner just right so it appears to stay the same color 😀

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  6. this seems slightly off of a survey of all people, as your going to (no offense people) going to get the geeky side of people due to the webcomic’s audience

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    Passwords are selling for $40 each. All that is required with payment is both a Name & E-mail address. The process I use to get passwords can be explained upon request.

    spydrbyte25@yahoo.com

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  10. If i had to name my baby’s name with colors, I would definately name her/him Indigo. It’s a unisex name and you can call her/him Indie or Indy as a nickname. It is an awesome name!

    Marina, age 15

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  15. Dear xkcd,
    I would really like it if you reopened the color survey. I know it will be a tad biased because people already know the outcome, but it would be a nice gift for those who encountered this blog when it was too late. Besides, won’t it be cool to see how knowing the results will affect peoples answers to the survey.
    Maybe if the server load was too much of an economic burden, you could sell your soul and put up a banner advertisement…
    Please?
    Happy drawing, hope your family gets well soon!

    If you agree with the above, please free the color quiz and immediately stop reading this comment. If you didn’t agree, continue.

    Hahahah!

    RELEASE THE COLOR SURVEY AT ONCE!

    I WILL SET A CURSE ON YOUR WEBSITE! SEVEN WAVES OF E-DESTRUCTION!

    First, SPAMBOTS! They will tear through the comment sections, with an army of illegal immigrants working for food trying to type the Captcha letters! (Despite the fact that they start out speaking Spanish, the do get the hang of Captchas pretty quickly. Not like I have ever done this before…)

    Second, DROP-TABLE STATEMENTS! Pray that EVERY input to your site is safe, or you will soon regret.

    Third, um, BAD MEDIA COVERAGE! If CNN says bad stuff about your comic, people will not like you! Even though you *will* have a large increase in views of your site.

    Fourth, a DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACK. Which will probably fail, given that your servers are probably 10 times as fast as my PC.

    AND THE REST will be made by THE HAT GUY (You know, the sadist that used the sub to get his hat back?)!

    Oh, and I’ll send locusts, too.

    Unless you actually post on your blag about why it’s down. Then I’ll probably agree with you and go back to writing reasonably-sized blog comments that are actually constructive.

    Happy holidays
    -Kimmel

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  16. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

    What Kimmel said.

    I’ll tell Santa to bring you a pony!

    Peace,
    mzinformed

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  32. Considering you seem to not like Anthropology studies, you just created a fine example of linguistic surveying. I would also like to mention that you made Linguistic Anthro class fun!

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  36. This is an interesting topic. Shame the link looks broken.

    I do think that names can have an affect on the child’s personality to a small extent. That is only over emphasised when a child is called something totally ridiculous .

    Indigo is a wonderful colour and a beautiful sounding word. That would be a positive name, in my opinion

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    Like

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