The story. Or it can be. Even my giant, super-size Crayola box (and yes, I still have one) doesn’t have enough colors in it. Think about being a yarn dyer and wanting to make the most perfect colors for your seasonal offering to the yarn addicts among us. You can’t just go with the yellow, pink, red, or purple. You must have sunflower, rose, lipstick and amethyst. But what if your bestie, who also dyes yarn has already used those?
Where do you get your inspiration? Maybe you think about where you saw the color you just dyed. Maybe you’re watching your favorite movie and absolutely love the costumes or hair colors or scenery therein. Maybe you look down at your dinner plate and find the right color combination for a shawl pattern. Would you name it Pasta Primavera? Perhaps. So many places for inspiration. What would you name a yarn color-way based on these pictures?
Mural Rekjavik airport 
Fredericksburg peaches 
Isek Kingelez Exhibit MOMA 
Turkish carpet 
Summer Hat 
El Paso garden
I think you can get to know people a wee bit by the names they choose for their yarns; not just the colors but the yarns themselves and the collections of those yarns. It could be you are a geologist in your non-yarn life and so your colors are named for minerals. Or maybe you like the chemistry involved so you name them using the periodic table. Or just maybe your dreams are so vivid and full of color you find their names there.
Some of my favorite yarn names have come from Dr. Who, New Orleans krewes and events, Harry Potter, and places I’ve visited. I’ve also bought yarn simply because once I picked it up to look more closely (so, you know, I was already drawn to it), I had to buy it because of the name.
Many things, can be unique experiences to each of us. A piece of art will speak to each viewer perhaps in a different way than intended by the artist. A piece of music sounds different to each person who listens to it. I have yarn in my possession not because I know the backstory but because the name (or the color itself) has triggered a memory unique to me. These are a few of them.
Sleep Paralysis 
Sock Monkey 
Dr. Strange
Granted, I have also bought yarn that I absolutely love but cannot for the life of me tell you what it’s called. But, just as in life, names matter and have a power of their own. So, I try to get them right and they intrigue me because they tell a story and connect me to the human who created them.