HEX to color name converter

How a HEX code becomes a name

A HEX code like #3B82F6 is three numbers in base 16: red 3B (59), green 82 (130) and blue F6 (246). Out of the 16.7 million possible codes, only a few thousand have names, so most codes do not have a name of their own. The converter finds the named color that looks closest.

"Looks closest" is measured in the OKLab color space, which is built so that the distance between two colors matches how different they appear. Matching in plain RGB numbers gives odd results; matching in OKLab gives the name a person would agree with.

Exact match or nearest name?

Every result says how close it is. Exact match appears only when your code equals the code of a named color, for example #FF6347 is exactly CSS tomato. Virtually identical, very close and close describe small differences, and nearest name means no named color is near: you still get the closest name, but you should not label the color with it without checking the two swatches.

Common names and precise names

The common name comes from the 141 CSS keywords and about 900 names of the xkcd Color Survey: words like teal, sage or dusty rose that most people would recognise. The most precise name comes from the Color Names list of over 30,000 entries, where nearly every shade has a name, often a creative one. Use the common name to describe a color to someone; use the precise one when you need a unique label for a design token or a paint swatch.