The fruit named after the colour orange is the orange itself.

Quick Scoop

Short answer

  • The colour orange got its name from the orange fruit , not the other way round.

How it happened (mini story)

Long ago in English, what we now call “orange” was described as “yellow-red” rather than having its own colour word.

The fruit arrived in Europe with names traced back through Spanish naranja , Arabic nāranj , Persian nārang , and Sanskrit nāraṅga meaning “orange tree.”

Only after the fruit became common in Europe around the 16th century did English speakers drop the “n” and start using “orange” as a word for both the fruit and the colour.

In other words, people met the fruit first, loved it, named it, and only then did that name get borrowed for the colour they were already seeing.

Fun timeline bullets

  • Before oranges were common: speakers said things like “yellow-red” for that hue.
  • 1300s: early English records of the fruit word (from Old French and earlier languages).
  • 1500s: sweet oranges spread widely in Europe; the colour term “orange” takes hold.

TL;DR: When you ask “what fruit is named after the colour orange?”, the trick is that it’s actually the reverse — the colour is named after the orange fruit.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.