Many named colors start with K across the major catalogs — Wikipedia's color lists, the xkcd Color Survey, traditional Japanese color vocabularies, brand and team colors, and fruit/plant color names. This page currently lists 21 notable K-color names. One CSS named-color keyword starts with K: khaki (#F0E68C). The other K-colors here come from public color catalogs, the xkcd Color Survey, traditional Japanese color vocabularies, brand and institutional palettes, artist-color history, and fruit and plant names.

Several strong candidates. Klein Blue — International Klein Blue (IKB) — is the deep ultramarine developed by French artist Yves Klein, among the most famous artist-associated colors of the 20th century. Khaki is the dusty earth tone of military uniforms, its name from the Urdu/Persian word for "dust." Kelly Green is the bright, traditional green long tied to Ireland. And several K-colors are named for foods — Key Lime, Kiwi, Kumquat, and the Japanese Kobicha (kelp-tea) and Kombu Green (kelp).

In a sense — but with an important nuance. International Klein Blue (IKB) is a deep ultramarine the French artist Yves Klein developed with Parisian paint supplier Édouard Adam, combining ultramarine pigment with a synthetic resin binder that lets the pigment keep its full, matte intensity. On May 19, 1960, Klein registered the formula with France's National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) via a Soleau envelope. Crucially, he registered the process, not the color itself — under French law a color cannot be owned — so IKB is not anyone's exclusive property and can be used freely.

It catches many people off guard. The word khaki comes from the Urdu/Persian for "dust" or "earth-colored," and the military fabric is a muted tan-brown. But the W3C CSS named color khaki (#F0E68C) — inherited from the X11 color set — is a soft, pale yellow, noticeably lighter and brighter than the uniform color. That is why this page lists two: the CSS khaki under Yellow, and a separate dusty khaki (#C3B091) under Brown for the military tone.

Yes. KSU Purple (#512888) is the official royal purple of Kansas State University, specified as PANTONE 268 C in the university's brand guidelines; by a commonly repeated account, an 1896 student committee recommended royal purple partly because no other school was using it, though K-State notes the precise origin is not well documented. KU Crimson (#E8000D) is the crimson of the University of Kansas Jayhawks, PANTONE 186 C, one of KU's two identifying colors with KU blue. The two Kansas rivals' colors sit side by side here only because both happen to start with K.

It varies by source. One K-color is fixed exactly by the W3C CSS Color Module specification: the CSS named color khaki (#F0E68C), which renders identically in every browser. Beyond that, the university colors are the strongest references: KSU Purple (PANTONE 268 C) and KU Crimson (PANTONE 186 C) come from the schools' own published brand guidelines. International Klein Blue is tied to a specific pigment-and-binder formula, though its on-screen hex is an approximation of a physical paint. For the traditional Japanese colors (Kobicha, Kombu Green) and the fruit/plant names (Key Lime, Kiwi, Kumquat, Kermit Green, Kelley Green), the values are widely circulated digital references — several drawn from the xkcd Color Survey — rather than fixed standards.