by meodai on 6/19/25, 10:40 AM with 52 comments
I made it from scratch without Express or any frameworks because:
- I’m a frontend/interaction dev and wanted to learn how to build an API from the ground up. - Existing APIs didn’t guarantee unique names per color—mine does. - It also supports WebSocket updates, gzip responses, and multiple name sets.
I’ve been collecting color names for over 10 years [1]. With ~30,000 entries, bundling them into every color-related project became excessive. This API keeps things lightweight—for me and hopefully for others too.
GitHub: https://github.com/meodai/color-name-api
Would love feedback on naming logic, accuracy, performance, or backend best practices I might’ve missed.
[1] Large Color Name List: https://github.com/meodai/color-names [2] XKCD color survey results: https://xkcd.com/color/rgb/
by airstrike on 6/21/25, 12:59 PM
I do have to ask, though. Why would I ever want to resolve a color name as a network request instead of calling a function?
by kiru_io on 6/21/25, 8:46 AM
[0] https://colorguesser.com/ [1] https://x.com/wifeofnoob/status/1935788167086436375
by aaviator42 on 6/22/25, 3:31 AM
by Theodores on 6/21/25, 12:02 PM
The slight problem with this is that I don't like having to escape the '#' character for colours. I prefer the nearest name, e.g. 'Chocolate' (which is orange).
Hence I have bookmarked this page.
One observation, I have now moved to oklch for everything else. I only do named colours and oklch, hex codes have gone the way of CMYK for me.
Are there any plans to make this tool oklch-friendly?
by ZoomZoomZoom on 6/21/25, 2:10 PM
by kotaKat on 6/21/25, 9:43 AM
by tillcarlos on 6/21/25, 2:06 PM
Cool project! I wonder what commercial use cases come from it. On the My First Million podcast they talked a about a company selling color predictions to brands for multiple six figures. Maybe you can find correlations and predictions in the data one day.
by esperent on 6/21/25, 12:36 PM
I think it would be effective on the landing page to have a form where I can enter a hex code and get the color name. I've recently tried a couple of web apps like this to get makes for my brand colors.
by magic_hamster on 6/21/25, 8:58 AM
by Gys on 6/21/25, 7:51 AM
Also, I think adding a kind of ‘main color’ would be useful. For example ‘shore’ being in the category ‘blue’ or maybe even ‘light blue’. Because for ‘shore’ itself I personally would associate with sand and maybe yellow.
by nkrisc on 6/21/25, 10:40 AM
by JdeBP on 6/21/25, 4:21 PM
by kuehle on 6/21/25, 4:29 PM
by rossant on 6/21/25, 7:45 AM