Find the name of any color instantly. Pick a color or paste a hex, RGB or HSL value and the finder returns the closest named color from the 148 CSS Color Level 4 names, matched with the perceptual CIEDE2000 formula — plus similar names, the complementary color, shades, tints and an accessible text color for it.
Generated locally in your browser — your colors, settings and code never leave this page.
Why finding a color’s name is harder than it looks
Screens can show 16.7 million colors; humans maintain names for a few hundred at best. Mapping an arbitrary hex code to the nearest name is therefore a nearest-neighbor search — and the quality of the answer depends entirely on how “nearest” is measured. Naive tools measure straight-line distance between RGB channel values, which fails routinely: RGB distance does not correspond to how different colors look, so the “closest” name can be visibly wrong while a better name sits ignored.
This finder measures distance with CIEDE2000 in CIELAB — the formula the color industry uses for tolerance judgments — so the returned name is the one a human would most likely agree with. The score is printed beside the name because honesty matters: “dodgerblue, ΔE 0.8” and “dodgerblue, ΔE 9.5” are very different claims.
The dataset question
Name lookups are only as good — and as legal — as their dataset. This tool matches against the 148 named colors of CSS Color Level 4: an open, precisely specified list every browser implements, from aliceblue to yellowgreen plus the community-added rebeccapurple. Every name it returns is a working CSS value, immediately usable in a stylesheet.
What it deliberately avoids: scraping proprietary naming systems. Pantone and RAL names belong to licensed physical color libraries; redistributing them as free lookup data is legally murky, and screen-based “matches” to physical ink standards are approximations that deserve skepticism. A tool that promises exact Pantone matches from a hex code is overpromising twice.
Reading the full report
Beyond the headline name, the report answers the questions that follow it. Similar names with scores map the neighborhood (“steelblue is close too, ΔE 4.2”). LAB and OKLCH values place the color for perceptual work. The complementary color, shades and tints sketch immediate design moves. And the recommended text color with its measured contrast ratio answers the practical question every identified color eventually faces: what can be written on it?
Typical workflows
Communicating in reviews (“make it more like steelblue” beats reciting hex), documenting palettes with human-readable aliases, decoding a color from a screenshot (via the Palette From Image tool, then here), and checking whether a brand color has an awkward near-name — discovering your premium brand blue is essentially cornflowerblue is better done early.
How to use the Color Name Finder
- Pick a color with the picker, or type any CSS color into the free-text field (it overrides the picker).
- The closest named color appears instantly, with the difference scored honestly.
- Compare your color and the named color side by side in the swatches.
- Copy the full report or its JSON form for documentation.
Frequently asked questions
How does the Color Name Finder decide which name is closest?
Every candidate name is compared to your color with CIEDE2000 – the industry-standard perceptual difference formula – in Lab space, and the smallest distance wins. That means "closest" is judged the way eyes judge it, not by naive RGB distance, which routinely picks names that look obviously wrong.
Which color names does this tool know?
The 148 named colors of CSS Color Level 4 – the X11/SVG set plus rebeccapurple. It is an open, spec-defined dataset every browser ships, so any name the tool returns is usable directly in CSS. It deliberately does not scrape proprietary systems like Pantone or RAL.
What does the ΔE00 score next to the name mean?
How far your color sits from the named one: below 1 most people cannot tell them apart, 1-2 needs side-by-side inspection, 2-10 is visible at a glance, beyond that they are clearly different colors. An exact match reads 0.
Can it find a Pantone name for my color?
No – and be wary of tools that claim to. Pantone is a licensed physical-ink library; matching it from screen values is approximate at best and legally murky to redistribute. This finder sticks to the open CSS names and says so.
Why does my very dark color match "black" even though it is bluish?
Perceptual distance compresses near the extremes – all very dark colors are genuinely hard to distinguish, so black is often the honest nearest name. The similar-names list shows the runners-up (midnightblue, darkslategray…) with their scores for a more specific label.
What else does the finder report besides the name?
The full identity card: your exact values in hex, RGB, HSL, LAB and OKLCH, the complementary color, three shades and tints, and a recommended readable text color with its real contrast ratio – the details you need right after identifying a color.
Can I look up a name from an image?
Use the Color Palette From Image tool to pull colors out of a picture locally (nothing is uploaded), then paste any extracted hex here for its name. The two tools are linked for exactly that hand-off.
