Colours as surnames

[alice]

Presumably any colour could be used as a surname, although in English, only "brown", "green", "white", and "black" are at all common. "Orange" turns up as the surname of a member of a popular boyband, and you could at a stretch add "silver", "gold", and "rose", but these are arguable secondary colour names. No doubt there are interesting reasons for this, but that's not really the point of this thread.

Anyway... what colours are used as surnames in other languages? "Schwarz" and "cerny" come to mind (both meaning "black"); surely there are many more.

[Soap]

There are a sizable number of Pink and Gray (usually spelled Grey) families too.

[Cockroach]

I've seen some Blues too. There's also Blancs. Never heard of a Pink though

[Nannalu]

Rebecca Black.
It had to be said.

[Jipí]

There's also some Weiss (white) families. Also, Roth (red) occasionally.

[alice]

There are a sizable number of Pink and Gray (usually spelled Grey) families too.

Oops; I should have remembered Gray/Grey, especially since the first girl I had a serious crush on had that surname

[Salmoneus]

It's hardly a surprise that white, brown, black and grey are the most common colour adjectives found as names, because they all describe skin tones or hair colours. I'm guessing there are also some Reds, Yellows, Fairs, Straws, Flaxes, Coppers, Auburns and so on as well in various languages.

"Pink" and "Rose" are probably surnames because they are flowers, and it's nice to describe young girls as flowers. Silver and Gold are probably occupations. "Orange" is a weird one, but I'm guessing it's a place of origin?

That only leaves "Green", which I suppose is either a shortening of an origin (eg Greenfield, Greenhill, Greenwood, etc), or else a synonym of Young.

[Cockroach]

Green describes people who lived near the village green.

[Acid Badger]

Rosso and its variations (meaning "red") are the most common Italian surnames, as far as I know. Then there's still Giuseppe Verdi ("green").

[Magb]

Norwegian:

Sort/Sorte/Svart/Svarte ("Black"): 0+36+0+23 = 59
Hvit/Hvite/Kvit/Kvite ("White"): 0
Grønn/Grøn ("Green"): 295+81 = 376
Rød/Røed/Røde/Raud/Raude ("Red"): 1503+1934+32+5+8 = 3482
Blå ("Blue"): 7
Brun/Brune ("Brown"): 1010+122 = 1132
Gul/Gule ("Yellow"): 89+196 = 285
Lilla ("Purple"): 4
Rosa ("Pink"): 18
Oransje ("Orange"): 0

I used this website: http://www.ssb.no/navn/, which takes its data from official government statistics. If there are fewer than 4 people with some name, it returns "0, 1, 2 or 3 people", presumably for privacy reasons. I've counted all such results as zero.

Some of these names might not be referring to the colors, and there could obviously be variant spellings that I've missed.

Anyway, by far the most popular one is "Red", with second place "Green" an order of magnitude behind. The near-absence of "Black" and total absence of "White" is an interesting contrast with English.

Edit: For reference, there are about 5 million people in Norway.
Edit2: I forgot "Brown", which is quite common.

[finlay]

Well, there's always Scarlett, Mustard, Plum and Peacock

[Viktor77]

Well, there's always Scarlett, Mustard, Plum and Peacock

Prof. Plum with the candlestick in the dining room.

[Grunnen]

In The Netherlands:

Groen "Green": 11 877
Groene "Green (One)": 77
De Groene "The Green (One)": 179
Total number of surnames containing groen: 197

Rood "Red": 1 938
Rode "Red (One)": 119
Roode "Red (One)": 555
De Rode "The Red (One)": 51
De Roode: 1 565

Bruin "Brown": 3 500
Bruijn/Bruyn: 1 809
De Bruin "The Brown (One)": 17 900
De Bruijn/De Bruyn: 17 974

Wit "White": 1 523
Witte "White (One)": 3 403
De Wit: 24 653
De Witte: 2 687


Zwart "Black": 6 081
Zwarte: -
Swart: 4 386
Swarte: 189
De Zwart: 2 890
De Swart: 1 420

Oranje "Orange (colour only)": 750
and don't forget the royal family: Van Oranje

Info from the Familinamen Databank "Family Name Data Base" of the Meertens Instituut: http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/nfb/.

On a total population of less than 17 million people.

[linguoboy]

There's also some Weiss (white) families. Also, Roth (red) occasionally.

What about Braun? It's more popular than either Weiss or Roth.

Gelb is fairly common in the States; I associate it primarily with German Jews, though, so I'm not sure how frequent it is in Germany today. Also common among Ashkenazic Jews are Gold and Silber, both metonymic surnames for jewellers and whitesmiths.

[Viktor77]

There's also some Weiss (white) families. Also, Roth (red) occasionally.

What about Braun? It's more popular than either Weiss or Roth.

Gelb is fairly common in the States; I associate it primarily with German Jews, though, so I'm not sure how frequent it is in Germany today. Also common among Ashkenazic Jews are Gold and Silber, both metonymic surnames for jewellers and whitesmiths.

There's a major street named Weiss right by me, obviously mispronounced though.

What about Goldstein?

[linguoboy]

Among the top 100 most common Chinese surnames, you have 黃 Huáng "yellow", 朱 Zhū "red", 金 Jīn "gold", 白 Bái "white", 黎 Lí "black". More obscure surnames include 藍 Lán "blue", 紅 Hóng "red", and 黑 Hēi "black" [the usual word].

I don't know much about the origins of Chinese surnames, but from I can tell they are very seldom (if ever) descriptive. Some also have origins with no parallels in the West, such as taboo deformations created by adding or (more often) removing a character element. Many are derived from the names of ancient feudal states.

The original meanings of 朱 and 藍 are "cinnabar" and "indigo", respectively, so it's possible these are ultimately occupational. Another possibility for 朱 is that it originated from the name of the feudal state 邾 Zhū (later 鄒 Zōu, in modern Shandong Province) by removal of the "town" radical (阝).

金 can also refer to metal in general, but according to legend its use as a surname derives from an ancient tribal designation. This is also its source as a surname for members of the Manchu royal family, whose mukūn or subclan/family name was Aisin "gold". Finally, this is the character corresponding to the most common of Korean surnames, Kim. Its origins there traditionally lie with an early king of the Kaya Confederacy whose birth name was Noisil Chʿŏng'ye. If I recall correctly, Noisil has been connected to an old native Korean element meaning "redden, dawn", so 金 may be an attempt to calque this.

[linguoboy]

What about Goldstein?

That's a German Jewish name of "ornamental" origin. When the German Jews were compelled to adopt heritable surnames beginning in the late 18th century, many chose names that were neither patronymic nor descriptive nor occupational nor strictly locational in nature (although often built like ordinary toponyms). These were generally combinations of pleasant-sounding elements like Gold, Grün, Edel ("noble"), Rose, Wein, Baum "tree", Blatt "leaf", Berg "mountain", and the like.

You find a close parallel in Scandinavia, particularly Sweden, where the state also compelled people to abandon traditional patronymics. Most simply adopted their patronymics as proper surnames, but some preferred to take farm or house names or similar-sounding ornamental names, mostly derived from the natural world (e.g. "maple", "linden", "twig", "stream", "valley", etc.). So, for instance, you have Swedish Grönberg answering to German-Jewish Grünberg.

In summary, Goldstein could--like Gold also--be metonymic for a jeweller, but it could also have been chosen simply for the sound.

[hwhatting]

What about Goldstein?

That's a German Jewish name of "ornamental" origin. When the German Jews were compelled to adopt heritable surnames beginning in the late 18th century, many chose names that were neither patronymic nor descriptive nor occupational nor strictly locational in nature (although often built like ordinary toponyms). These were generally combinations of pleasant-sounding elements like Gold, Grün, Edel ("noble"), Rose, Wein, Baum "tree", Blatt "leaf", Berg "mountain", and the like.
...
In summary, Goldstein could--like Gold also--be metonymic for a jeweller, but it could also have been chosen simply for the sound.

Often, such names weren't chosen by the Jews in question, but foisted on them by the bureaucrats tasked with registering the surnames, who tended to indulge in what they thought of as humour. IIRC, there were cases of Jews being given unpleasant names which would be changed to something more pleasant for a bribe.

[linguoboy]

Often, such names weren't chosen by the Jews in question, but foisted on them by the bureaucrats tasked with registering the surnames, who tended to indulge in what they thought of as humour. IIRC, there were cases of Jews being given unpleasant names which would be changed to something more pleasant for a bribe.

I've heard this for years now but I've had the damnedest time sourcing it. Do you have any supporting cites, Hans-Werner?

[hwhatting]

Often, such names weren't chosen by the Jews in question, but foisted on them by the bureaucrats tasked with registering the surnames, who tended to indulge in what they thought of as humour. IIRC, there were cases of Jews being given unpleasant names which would be changed to something more pleasant for a bribe.

I've heard this for years now but I've had the damnedest time sourcing it. Do you have any supporting cites, Hans-Werner?

I remember reading about that in the dtv-Atlas Namenkunde, but that's on my shelf in Bonn.
A quick search leads me to this PDF, which quotes the dtv-Atlas. According to this, such cases seem to be attested only for Western Galicia:

Es ist verbreitete Ansicht, daß bei der Durchführung solcher Erlasse den Juden für Bestechungsgeld ,schöne‘ Namen wie Blumenberg, sonst aber scheußliche wie Stiefelknecht
gegeben wurden (Ekelnamen).
Entsprechende Vorkommnisse gab es in Westgalizien, wo die Juden 1805 ihre Familiennamen vom Kreisamt oder einem Commissär ,zu empfangen‘ hatten. Sie wurden aber oft zu Unrecht
verallgemeinert und sind andernorts nicht nachweisbar.

So that wasn't as frequent as I remembered.

[AnTeallach]

Rabbi Lionel Blue.

I don't know the origin of his surname.

[LoneWolf]

I can't think of any colour surnames in French, but there is a woman's first name Blanche 'white'. It is considered somewhat archaic today though. Damn it I'm pretty sure I use to know one in Irish too... can't remember.

[linguoboy]

Rabbi Lionel Blue.

Yeah, I'd do him. Oh, wait, that wasn't the question!

I don't know the origin of his surname.

Anglicisation of German Blau, I imagine. Bahlow says that as a German gentile name this refers to the colour of someone's clothes, but that as a Jewish name it may be purely ornamental or a shortening of a longer ornamental name such as "Blaustein" or "Blaubaum". Similar for Grün, although this can also be a sobriquet for someone who is young or "green" in their profession as well as a location surname from one of several towns of this name.

[linguoboy]

I can't think of any colour surnames in French

Leblanc
Lebleu
Lebrun
Legris
Lenoir
Lerouge
Levert

There's no *Lejaune as far as I can tell, but Leblond is common enough.

[Pthagnar]

Has anybody mentioned Tawny/Tawney, Auburn and Russett yet? So many browns.

Here's a Blond.