I wondered why in English redheads are called redhead, not orangehead, or something like that; after all, there is far less red than there is orange or even yellow. It turns out that the term originated when red encompassed shades from orange to red, and there simply wasn’t a word for orange — it emerged with the arrival of oranges. And consider the red fox, which is also “red,” surprisingly enough.
Why didn’t it occur to the English to name the orange color after the color of pumpkins or carrots as “Pumpkin” or “Carrot”? Why wait until oranges were introduced to England? It’s quite simple. In fact, both pumpkins and carrots come in colors other than orange. As we know, pumpkins can be yellow, green, and bright orange, while carrots were originally not orange but purple. As for oranges, they are exclusively orange, hence the word “orange” became the perfect name for the color.
However, in English, there is another word meaning “red-haired” — ginger — derived from the word “ginger”, which is another puzzle, since ginger root is golden-yellow, not orange. Logically, it might make more sense to call blondes ginger, not redheads.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 