Change three color names

[XtinaSchelin]

[css-color-3]

The following three color names should be changed to the suggested new names:

• IndianRed to ChestnutRose
• Moccasin to Peach
• NavajoWhite to OldPaper

Those are the first ones I thought of. Changing them away from what they are now is the important part.

For the current list of color names, see:

https://www.w3.org/TR/css-color-3/

[dbaron]

This long list of color names exists not because we want it to be there, but because we're stuck with it for backwards compatibility.

I would be against creating any new color names to replace these existing ones. Use of these names isn't good practice: many of them are quite confusing and don't map to the colors people would expect them to map to.

I think we should use this issue to discuss whether to remove these names, without creating any new ones.

[gsnedders]

This long list of color names exists not because we want it to be there, but because we're stuck with it for backwards compatibility.

Though perhaps we should alter the blue/green of NavajoWhite so it's not #FFDEAD if we think there's unlikely to be too many images trying to match it exactly (#FFDFAE increasing lightness from 83.9% to 84.2%?).

Would be nice to look at HTTP Archive and see how much usage we see of them.

[tabatkins]

Indian Red is named after a famous red pigment from India, and has no connection to Native Americans.

Navajo White refers to the background color of the Navajo Nation flag. I was under the impression that it was defined as the "official" color, but I can't find support for that now; slightly changing it to a less unfortunate hex code would probably be fine.

Moccasin has no particular special meaning, but also it's just the name of a type of shoe.

[gsnedders]

Indian Red is named after a famous red pigment from India, and has no connection to Native Americans.

Arguments from etymology are pretty weak; it's hard to deny that both "indian" and "red" both have negative connotations in the US (especially combined!) and AFAICT many assume it is connecting to Native Americans without knowing otherwise. The only counterargument I've seen against renaming things using it is that to remove it effectively is writing out India.

Navajo White refers to the background color of the Navajo Nation flag. I was under the impression that it was defined as the "official" color, but I can't find support for that now; slightly changing it to a less unfortunate hex code would probably be fine.

I can't find any official source more specific than "tan".

Moccasin has no particular special meaning, but also it's just the name of a type of shoe.

I presume the potential objection comes from it being a type of (historically Native American) shoe, and an Algonquian loanword.

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That said, along with any discussion about whether to remove these, an easier move we could do quickly is to deprecate them, as that at the very least signals a desire to remove them.

[Crissov]

@XtinaSchelin Your proposal is missing any argument or reasoning, although people are quick to jump to assumptions as to what they are.

[astearns]

We could officially deprecate these names in the spec, and allow user agents to stop supporting them (depending on usage)

[fantasai]

Going to second @Crissov's point that this request to remove has zero justifications, and removing things from the Web platform really ought to have some significant rationale.

[tabatkins]

Indian Red is named after a famous red pigment from India, and has no connection to Native Americans.

Arguments from etymology are pretty weak; it's hard to deny that both "indian" and "red" both have negative connotations in the US (especially combined!) and AFAICT many assume it is connecting to Native Americans without knowing otherwise. The only counterargument I've seen against renaming things using it is that to remove it effectively is writing out India.

Right, etymology is only a minor part, but it's not nothing; if the name did have racist origins that would be a strong reason to change, but it doesn't at all.

So then the question is - is there any harm being done? I'm not aware of any racist usage of the color that would warrant a removal or rename.

I am supportive of adding a note to the spec explaining the name, because I also didn't know the source of the name before Alex Sexton's talk on the history of the color names.

Navajo White refers to the background color of the Navajo Nation flag. I was under the impression that it was defined as the "official" color, but I can't find support for that now; slightly changing it to a less unfortunate hex code would probably be fine.

I can't find any official source more specific than "tan".

Yup, that's my conclusion as well, so a minor change would probably be fine. And including it in the explanatory note would be good as well.

Moccasin has no particular special meaning, but also it's just the name of a type of shoe.

I presume the potential objection comes from it being a type of (historically Native American) shoe, and an Algonquian loanword.

I'm not sure what the objection there is, tho. English has a lot of loanwords from native languages; it doesn't appear to me that this one is being used in a problematic way. It's just the color of pale leather, which moccasins were made from.

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I'll note that I have no attachment to any of the color names, and would be fine with deprecating most of them anyway. ^_^

[faceless2]

Removing or deprecating words of non-english origin needs solid justification. If they're offensive, deprecate them, but if not they should be left - otherwise, curiously, we'll be effectively whitewashing a list of colors.

[svgeesus]

The Navajo Nation flag has a pale buff color background
https://www.discovernavajo.com/navajo-culture-and-history.aspx

The X11 color bears little relationship to the color on the actual flag; it seems instead to be a proprietary paint color:

All the details about one of my favorite paint colors, Benjamin Moore Navajo White (not to be confused with Sherwin Williams color of the same name).
https://julieblanner.com/benjamin-moore-navajo-white/

However, these are color names which were already widespread by 1996 and eventually grandfathered in due to web compat; we can't therefore change the colors or change the names. We can deprecate them, and we can explain where the names come from if that helps.

[hober]

SVG also defines these colors (w3c/svgwg#805), so if we deprecate or remove them from CSS, we should do the same in SVG.

The Inclusion & Diversity Community Group is kicking off an effort to review specifications for the use of oppressive or non-inclusive language.

There is no cost to the CSSWG to deprecating color names. Removing support for color names in browser engines is a web compat question, of course, and one that we should investigate with usage counters. That said, discouraging the use of non-inclusive color names in the spec is free. We should do so.

(hi @XtinaSchelin, it's been a loooooong time!)