Find a name for almost any hex color

Heads up! This post was written in 2014, so it may contain information that is no longer accurate. I keep posts like this around for historical purposes and to prevent link rot, so please keep this in mind as you're reading.

— Cory

Have you ever wondered what color that certain shade of blue is? Or maybe you've named your Less/Sass variables something like gray, light gray, lighter gray, etc. Here's a tool that will give you more reasonable names for all those colors.

Name that Color lets you enter a hex value (or choose one from the color picker) and gives you a human-readable name for the closest matching shade. There are over 1,500 color names available, ranging from alabaster to zinnwaldite. Others are more common, such as brick red, chocolate, and slate gray. Even if you don't land on a perfect match, the nearest named-color is only a shade or two away.

The author also provided the JavaScript library behind it all under a Creative Commons license. It's really easy to use:

// Find the nearest match
var match = ntc.name("#6195ED");

// The resulting array
var closest = match[0]; // RGB value of the closest match
var name    = match[1]; // The color name
var exact   = match[2]; // True if it's an exact match

What will you do with this handy tool?