Purple Dog Names

214 names in this category, each with its meaning and background. See all color categories.

No dog is purple. There is no purple pigment in the canine coat, so if you searched for purple dog names you almost certainly meant one of three other things: a name to go with a purple collar or bed, a name that sounds like the colour — violet, lilac, amethyst — or a dog whose cool grey-mauve coat people keep describing as purple.

That third case has a real answer, and it is the most useful thing on this page. If your dog is lilac, you are naming a genetically defined coat colour rather than a figure of speech, and knowing which colour it actually is narrows the list a great deal.

Aether

Latinized form of greek Αἰθήρ (Aither), "ether, heaven", from αἴθω (aitho), "to burn, to ignite"

Alien

A being from another planet

Amethyst

From the greek for "not intoxicated", the purple semi-precious stone

Anthea

From greek ἄνθος (anthos), "flower, blossom"

Aranca

Romanian name of a river in the Banat region of Romania and Serbia

Arissa

No documented meaning in the sources checked

Aster

From the flower, from Latin and Greek ἀστήρ (aster), "star"

Axie

Recorded as a rare English given name, feminine

Ayame

Japanese for iris flower

Ayami

Feminine Japanese given name, written 文美, 綾美, 綾実, 礼美, 彩未 or あやみ

Azalea

From the name of the flower, ultimately from Greek azaleos, meaning "dry"

Azalia

Recorded as a rare feminine given name in American English

Barney

Diminutive of Barnabas, Bernard or Barnaby

Bella Rose

Bery

Bijou

French word meaning "jewel"; mostly used as a name in French-speaking Africa.

Blackberry

Blosem

Blossom

From the English word blossom, from Old English blōstm

Bluebell

English given name, from the bluebell flower

Blueberry

English rare given name, from the berry of Vaccinium shrubs

Bluma

From Yiddish בלום (blum), meaning "flower"

Braelynn

A modern English name combining 'briar' and 'lynn'.

Brya

Recorded as a feminine given name in modern English; also a genus of Caribbean flowering plants

Bubblegum

Cadbury

A British chocolate brand known for its milk chocolate

Caisy

Calla

From the name of two white-flowered plants, the calla and the calla lily

Calyx

From greek kálux, husk or pod; the outer part of a flower bud

Candy

Diminutive of Candace, influenced by the English word candy

Cassis

A commune east of Marseille, spelled Cassís in Provençal

Cataleya

Variant of Cattleya, a genus of orchids named for William Cattley

Cosmos

An alternative name for the universe or its nature or order

Crimson

English word for a rich, deep red colour, inclining to purple

Crokus

Dahlia

From the flower, named for the Swedish botanist Anders Dahl

Dainty

Dalena

Recorded as a rare feminine given name in english

Daliah

Daliah is recorded as a given name in modern Spanish and in Hebrew.

Dania

Italian diminutive of Daniela; also an alternate transcription of Arabic Daniya

Darkstar

Dasy

A variant of 'Daisy', which is a flower symbolizing purity and innocence.

Daysi

A given name recorded in Spanish (Latin American), feminine

Daysie

Recorded as a rare modern american english given name for girls

Daysy

Dehlia

Deisy

Spanish form of the English name Daisy

Dewberry

A group of species in the genus Rubus, closely related to blackberries

Dino

Italian, meaning "little sword" or "little bear"; Bosniak, from Arabic din "faith"

Dipsy

Disco Paws

Djinnie

Dusk

English word for the darkest stage of twilight, just before night

Fairy

A type of mythical being or legendary creature in European folklore

Fantasia

English word for a free-form instrumental composition; recorded as a given name in African American use

Fantasy

The English word for a genre of speculative fiction with supernatural or magical elements

Fennel

Fey

Not documented as a word with a meaning; recorded as a rare German given name

Fig

English word for the fruit of Ficus carica, the common fig

Fiorella

From Italian fiore "flower" with a diminutive suffix

Fiorina

Fleur

Means "flower" in French

Floella

Elaborated form of Flo

Flora

From Latin flos, "flower"; the name of the Roman goddess of flowers and spring

Flower

English word for the blossoming plant, from Latin flos

Freesia

A genus of flowering plants in the family Iridaceae, named after Friedrich Freese

Galaxa

Gem

English word for a gemstone, a cut and polished mineral used in jewelry

Gigi

Diminutive of names containing the letters or sound "gi"

Ginie

Glorie

Recorded as a feminine given name in medieval Flemish

Grimes

The name of a famous musician and artist

Groovy

Slang term meaning excellent, fashionable or amazing

Gumball

User-submitted: recorded as a given name in Popular Culture (masculine)

Gumdrop

Hana

In Arabic, "bliss, happiness"; in Japanese, "flower"; also a form of Hannah.

Heather

From the English word for the small shrubs with pink or white flowers

Huckleberry

From the name of the Vaccinium shrubs or their berries

Indigo

From the English word indigo, the purplish-blue dye or colour, ultimately from Greek Indikon, "from India".

Iolite

English gemology term for the clear variety of cordierite, sometimes used as a gem

Ippsie

Iris

Greek word for "rainbow"; the name of the Greek goddess of the rainbow

Irisa

Iriss

A flower name derived from Greek mythology, representing the rainbow.

Ixia

A genus of South African plants of the iris family; also an English given name

Jam

Persian form of Avestan Yima, meaning "twin".

Jasmin

German and Finnish form of Jasmine, and an English variant.

Jazzmine

Recorded as a feminine given name in modern English

Jelly Bean

Jellybean

Jem

Diminutive of Jeremy, and formerly of James

Jewel

From the English word jewel, a precious stone, via Old French jouel

Joker

English word for a person who makes jokes, a jester, or a playing card

Jolanda

Dutch, Slovene and Croatian form of Yolanda and Italian variant of Iolanda

Jubela

Jubilee

English word for a celebration, commemoration, or anniversary

Juniper

Kali

Sanskrit Kālī, the Hindu goddess; etymologically "one who governs time or is black"

Keya

Recorded as a feminine given name in Bengali

Kohana

No meaning is documented in the sources checked

Lilac is a real coat colour, and it is not violet

A lilac dog is a chocolate dog that also inherited the dilution gene. UC Davis, which runs the reference laboratory for canine coat genetics, describes the effect plainly: the same dilution that turns a black dog blue turns a chocolate brown dog into a pale, silvery shade. Breed registries then disagree about what to call it — the French Bulldog world usually says isabella, other breeds say lilac, and some breeders use lilac for a light blue as well.

What matters if you are naming the dog is what the colour looks like rather than what the paperwork says: a cool, dusty grey-brown with a mauve cast. That is a much tighter brief than purple, and it points straight at the stone and flower names below. One honest footnote — dilution is associated with colour dilution alopecia in some breeds, so a lilac or blue dog is worth asking a vet about if the coat thins.

The four groups that genuinely fit

Strip out the coincidence and the names on this page fall into four groups. These are the ones that earned their place.

Stones: amethyst is the familiar one and the only purple gem that reads as a name rather than a mineral label — it is also February’s birthstone. Behind it: iolite, a violet-blue stone sometimes sold as water sapphire; tanzanite; charoite; sugilite. All four are real, all four are unusual, and three of them are a mouthful.
Flowers: violet, viola, lilac, lavender, wister, iris, hyacinth, periwinkle. Every one of these is a plant before it is a colour, which is exactly why they survive being used as a name. periwinkle is the sleeper here — it is a flower, a shade between blue and violet, and an old English name.
Shade words: magenta, plum, indigo, heather, mallow. These are bolder than the flowers and less common on dogs. indigo is the one to reach for if your dog is actually blue rather than lilac, because it sits between the two.
Pop culture: the broad filter below swept these up, and they are the most entertaining part of the list: barney, the purple dinosaur; tonks, whose hair in the Harry Potter books is reliably purple; windu, for Mace Windu’s purple lightsaber; morticia, for a gothic violet-black; and the velvet-coated willy wonka.

Read the list below with one eye open

The names further down this page were selected by an automated pass that was required to assign every name between three and five colours. That requirement — three minimum, five maximum, no exceptions — guaranteed that a large share of them landed here by coincidence rather than by association. The four groups above are the names that hold up; everything below them is a broad net.

This is also why purple is one of only two colour pages on this site still open to search engines. In sixteen months of Search Console data, purple and pink were the only colour categories that matched real queries — purple dog names, purple pet names, lilac dog names, purple names for pets — and the other fifteen were built from the same faulty pass without ever finding an audience. They have been taken out of the index rather than left to compete on data that does not hold up.

How to choose one that survives being shouted

Purple names run long. amethyst and lavender are three syllables, wister is two but wisteria is four, and periwinkle is three. Length is a real cost in a recall name, and the usual solution is to take the short form and never look back: Amy from amethyst, Vi or Lettie from violet, Lily from lilac, Peri from periwinkle.

Decide the short form before you decide the name. A dog learns the sound you actually use, and the beautiful long version on the registration paperwork will be heard by nobody — least of all the dog.

See also: Pink dog names · Dog names meaning love · Small dog names · amethyst · iolite · lavender · iris · tonks · windu

Common questions

Is there such a thing as a purple dog?

No. Dogs produce two coat pigments, black and red, and neither is purple. The coats people describe as purple are dilute colours — lilac and blue — which read as grey-mauve in daylight. The other common reason for the search is a purple collar, lead or bed that the owner wants the name to match.

What is a lilac dog, exactly?

A chocolate dog carrying two copies of the dilution gene. The dilution drains the warmth out of the brown and leaves a cool, dusty shade. UC Davis notes that breeds do not agree on the name — the French Bulldog usually calls the same colour isabella — so the word on the pedigree is less informative than the colour of the dog in front of you.

What is the difference between purple, violet and lilac?

They sit at different points on the same stretch between red and blue. Lilac is the pale, pink-leaning end — roughly #C8A2C8 — and violet is the bluest and most saturated. Purple is the general term covering all of them, which is why it is the word people search for.

Why are the other colour pages not in the index?

Because their membership came from the same automated pass that forced three to five colour tags onto every name, which made them near-duplicates of one another — the black page shared 97.8% of its names with the brown and white pages. purple and pink found real queries; the rest never did.

Sources

Page reviewed 24 September 2026.