HTML Color Names
All 148 HTML/CSS named colors with HEX, RGB, and HSL codes. Search, filter by color family, sort by hue, and find the nearest named color for any hex.
Updated June 2026
Lime vs Green
Pure valueIn CSS, lime is pure #00FF00 — green is actually the darker 50% shade #008000.
Aqua vs Cyan
IdenticalBoth aqua and cyan map to exactly #00FFFF. They are synonyms in every browser engine.
Gray vs Grey
AliasesCSS supports both spellings: 7 gray/grey synonym pairs contribute to the 148 total keywords.
141 colors found
Nearest Named Color Finder
Paste any hex code and find the closest official CSS named color, ranked by ΔE (CIELAB) color distance.
The story of RebeccaPurple #663399
In 2014, the web community came together to honor Rebecca Meyer, the six-year-old daughter of CSS pioneer Eric Meyer, who died of brain cancer on her birthday. At the community's suggestion, the shade of purple she loved was added to the CSS specification forever as rebeccapurple — the only CSS color named after a person.
How to use the HTML color names list
Search, filter, and find the closest named color
1. Type a name or a hex fragment
The grid filters live — search by keyword like `tomato`, or a partial hex like `ff63`.
2. Filter by family or sort
Pick "Blues" and sort by lightness to scan every blue from palest to darkest in one pass.
3. Copy it, or find the nearest match
Click a swatch to copy its HEX, or paste any hex into the finder to get the closest official CSS keyword.
What this CSS color names tool does
All 148 keywords, actually searchable
Nearest named color finder
Paste any hex and get the closest official CSS keyword, ranked by ΔE (CIELAB) perceptual distance.
Filter by color family
Every blue, every green, grouped the way a designer actually browses colors — not an alphabetical wall of text.
Sort by hue, lightness, or saturation
Not just A-to-Z — sweep an entire family in a real visual progression instead.
Ready-to-paste CSS snippets
Every color's detail view includes HEX, RGB, HSL, and a code block you can copy straight into a stylesheet.
Examples
When you'll reach for this
The scenarios that come up most for people using this tool
Prototypes and demos
background: cornflowerblue is faster to type and easier to read at a glance than a hex code.
Naming a brand color semantically
Paste your hex into the finder to see if a CSS keyword is close enough for quick mockups and comps.
Picking a shade within one family
Filter to "Greens" and sort by lightness instead of hunting through an alphabetical table.
Teaching and documentation
Names like tomato and papayawhip are far more memorable than hex codes when explaining CSS to beginners.
Common mistakes with CSS color keywords
Using `green` and expecting pure green
green is #008000, half brightness. The fully saturated green keyword is lime.
Writing `grey` on its own
Only gray is valid as a standalone keyword — grey only works inside compound names like darkgrey.
Assuming there are 140 named colors
The spec defines 148 keywords. Validation built against an older count rejects perfectly valid names.
Why use this tool
Unlike a static reference table, you filter by color family and sort by hue, lightness, or saturation — the way a designer actually browses color, not alphabetical order.
The nearest-color finder uses ΔE perceptual distance in CIELAB space, which models how humans actually perceive color differences far better than raw RGB distance does.
lime vs. green
The most common mix-up in CSS color names
Frequently asked questions
Exactly 148 keywords — 141 unique names plus 7 aliases using the British spelling "grey". The original 16 basics come from HTML 4.01, most of the rest from X11/SVG, and rebeccapurple was added in 2014.
References
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