Talk:Baby blue

boys and girls
This article says that this is the color to indicate baby boys. Any corresponding color to indicate baby girls?? Georgia guy 01:20, 14 May 2005 (UTC)


 * That would be pink. I guess there should be a note there explaining that. --WillDarlock 06:02, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Added a note to this effect. --Chatoyant 15:57, 24 June 2005 (UTC)

bad reference
the following reference has been called in to question on google answers, A researcher looked for the cited reference and could not find it. "There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl." [Ladies Home Journal, June, 1918]

it is possible the reference is wrong, it is also possible it is fake and the citation has been passed around to justify the quote photodude 20:49, 3 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Google Books has an example of it being cited from a different source (The Infants' Department, which was, according to, a "merchandising magazine"). —Muke Tever talk 23:36, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * As there seems to be at least some uncertainty about the reference and no one's looked it up directly, I replaced it with two references from the NY Times that can be verified directly.
 * There were also two links that are relevant to the topic, but I didn't add them as I didn't think they could be added in a way that didn't constitute OR:
 * Here's the section I removed:
 * An American newspaper in 1914 advised mothers, "If you like the color note on the little one's garments, use pink for the boy and blue for the girl, if you are a follower of convention." Ladies Home Journal in 1918 reported: "There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl."
 * Also, I found two links in the NY Times archive that help confirm the tradition that are directly accessible. I would have added them, but I couldn't think of a way to do so that didn't constitute OR, so I post them here in case someone finds an effective way to include them:
 * http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D04E6DA103BEF33A25750C2A9619C94629ED7CF
 * http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D02E7D8153CE433A25757C2A9679C94669ED7CF
 * The first one includes this:
 * "Oh, pink for a boy and blue for a girl!" exclaims a young woman who is preparing some gifts for a newly-arrived nephew. "Of course, you know; why, if every one chose a different color, baby clothes would be all mixed; always give pink to a boy and blue to a girl."  Perhaps this quaint rule springs from the realization that the boy's outlook is so much more roseate than the girl's that the pink belongs to him by right of the fitness of things, and that it is enough to make a baby girl blue to think of living a woman's life in the world.
 * The second one includes this:
 * "There are, in the first place, six knitted shirts, made of the finest saxony; six knitted bands, and a dozen socks, assorted sizes. These are of fine, soft wool, and may be either all white or varied with pink and blue—no other colors for a little baby.  The pink is usually considered the color for a boy and the blue for a girl, but mothers use their own taste in such matters."
 * (they sure were fond of semicolons then). Orenstein also makes an interesting point: Cinderella's dress is blue, probably in no small part to this tradition. Jun-Dai (talk) 09:11, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The alleged reversal in 1940 is an urban legend. Blue for boys, pink for girls, goes back to 1870. An opposite rule started some time later. In 1921 a survey was conducted to find out which tradition was more popular. Blue for boys won out by 2 to 1. It was apparently a regional thing. 1940 was just the last nail in the coffin for "pink for boys."

The Twentieth Century Reversal of Pink-Blue Gender Coding: A Scientific Urban Legend?
The discovery of this ‘‘pink-blue reversal’’(henceforth PBR)is usually attributed to Paoletti (1987, 1997, 2012).

On the face of it, the claim being made is quite extraordinary, especially if one considers the strong inertia of gender-related norms and conventions. The reader may be surprised to learn that Paoletti herself never endorsed the PBR in her own articles and books. Rather, she made the weaker claim that the gender coding of pink and blue was inconsistent — not reversed — at the beginning of the twentieth century and that the current pink-blue convention only became dominant in the 1950s (Paoletti, 1987, 1997, 2012).

1833 The Court Journal: Court Circular & Fashionable Gazette
"Pink is for girls, or dowagers;"

1837 The Boy's Friend: Or The Maxims of the Cheerful Old Man
"The boy is dressed in his best blue jacket and white trousers, and the girl in her new pink frock."

1870 Good Health: A Popular Annual on the Laws of Correct Living, as Developed by Medical Science, Etc.; Bottle Babies, by Kate Gannett Wells, Boston
Of course my baby was to be a bottle baby....

I was radical, progressive, hated restraint and conventionalism, and duty....

How sweet were my slumbers that night! My brain had been exercised over cooperative housekeeping; and in my dreams I beheld driving round the neighborhood every two hours, from a central kitchen, little wagons,--pink for girls, blue for boys,--containing shelves with various sized apertures in them, holding the necks of baby bottles, that were maintained at the right temperature by a self-heating apparatus. O this nineteenth century! this blessed age of invention, when even an infant's food is systematically and modestly conveyed to each child without the encumbrance of family arrangements! How was baby-tending any longer to interfere with intellectual and female development?

1870 The Church School Journal
"To facilitate distribution by the librarian, have green cards for boys and pink for girls."

1877 The Sunday school teacher
"The scholar receives from the librarian a card, size 3 1/2 by 2 1/2 inches, blue for boys, green for girls..."

1884 The Hawaiian Monthly, Foreign Matters, The Founding Asylum of St. Petersburg
In another room we saw six pine coffins, containing the little ones who had died that day. Their shrouds were cotton cloth, scalloped by scissors and the sleeves and wrists, with a pink bow in the cap if a girl, and blue if a boy.

1892 The Peterson Magazine
BABY'S BLANKET: "Blue is used for boys', pink is for girls'.

1896 Preparation for Motherhood
Some one color should be chosen for the baby's belongings and used wherever color is permissible. Pink for a girl and blue for a boy is the established usage. Pale green, crimson, and yellow are all pretty.

1898 Pacific Medical Journal, Volume 41
It is then weighed, measurements made of its length, size of head and chest, which are inscribed on a card, blue for boys and pink for girls, bearing its name, age, and sex; in fact, all important data can be found upon this card.

1898 The New England Journal of Medicine
How Russia Cares for her Foundlings

By J. L. Hildreth, M.D., Cambridge, Mass.

Read before the Cambridge Medical Improvement Society, April 25, 1898.

The two sexes are distinguished by the boys having blue and the girls pink cards, bearing their names and numbers, fastened about the neck; also the same color upon some part of their clothing. It seemed odd to find, in far-off Russia, the very same assignment of colors as among the petted babies of our own land.

1900 Home Mission Monthly
When the dues are paid, each child receives a badge--pink for girls, and blue for boys.

1906 Salted Almonds by F. Anstey
...parcels neatly tied up in ribbon--blue for boys, and pink for girls....

1908 A Dictionary of Men's Wear ...
p. 32 Blue - the color supposed to exercise a gracious influence over the budding destinies of, and to be especially becoming and appropriate to, boy babies as, conversely, pink is for girls.

p. 187 Pink - alleged English for red; used only in connection with hunting coats (properly scarlet refines). Pink - a color not to be worn by boy babies.

1911 Walden's Stationer and Printer
All dealers are familiar with the increasing use of special form announcements to herald the arrival of the new born. ... There are two boxes, the prevailing color of one being pink, for girls, and the other blue, for boys.

1913 Young Folk's Handbook
Color: Pink for girls, Light blue for boys.

1914 Fear and Conventionality
The sexes have their own colors, beginning in the nursery with blue for boys, pink for girls.

1915 The Cocoon: A Rest-cure Comedy
"Pink is for girls, Jack."

==== 1917 England and Wales: v. 1. Introduction, General report, Charts and diagrams, Abstract of legislation, Epitomes of local reports, by E. W. Hope. v. 2. Midwives and midwifery, Voluntary work for infant welfare, Play centres and playgrounds ==== Case papers take the form of cards, pink for girls, blue for boys

1921 Geyer's Stationer: Devoted to the Interests of the Stationery ..., Volume 72, August 4, p. 22
BLUE FOR BOYS; PINK FOR GIRLS

For many years the correct colors for use in connection with birth announcements and many other articles pertaining to or used for babies has been a much mooted question. Most good authorities have maintained that blue for a boy and pink for a girl is undoubtedly correct, while others have insisted that pink for a boy and blue for a girl is proper. So universal did this difference of opinion become that finally, at the suggestion of the Whiting Paper Co., a questionnaire on the subject was sent out by the National Association of Steel and Copper Plate Engravers in an effort to set an authoritative standard of color. Their report is embodied in a circular sent out to the members of the association which reads as follows:

"In the new edition of 'Proper Forms' an attempt to set some standard of color for birth cards has been made. Our questionnaire replies showed cities totaling 12,000,000 people using blue for a boy--cities totaling 6,000,000 using pink for a boy. We believe the majority should be correct and think some record will help standardize it--it is not imperative--when doubtful, advise white."

1929 The Michigan Alumnus, Volume 36
BLUE FOR BOYS,

PINK FOR GIRLS

The Daily...conducted a two-day poll...on the prohibition question.... Men voted on blue ballots, women on pink, so the results could be kept separate.

1939 LIFE Apr 17, p. 9 (magazine advertizement for Fels-Naptha Soap)
PINK is for girls.

Blue is for boys.

But tattle-tale GRAY for a baby?

NEVER!

1940 Catalog of Copyright Entries. Part 1. &#91;B&#93; Group 2. Pamphlets, Etc. New Series
"Pink is for girls, Blue is for boys." -C- Feb. 25th, 1939 A 98213"

Fenner and Beane, New York 21684-21689 Zyxwv99 (talk) 23:54, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

baby blue ????????????????????
The color looks *nothing like baby blue*! Do a image search for baby blue, 90% of the hits look more blue than what's on wikipedia. So whatever a book in 1930 said, it's no longer correct in today use. (Assuming the 1930s book is the reference for the used color in the article RGB (r, g, b) (224, 255, 255)).

http://www.colourlovers.com/img/89CFF0/228/207/baby_blue.png

That's much more close to what people are actually using to mean baby blue as evidenced by thousands of images and photos. 88.115.115.16 (talk) 17:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

UPDATE! Also note this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Baby_blue&oldid=13668722

The original article where the "baby blue == light cyan" idea came from has no reference used! So even though the current article uses some old book as reference, notice that there's no certainty whether that was ACTUALLY USED for the original article! It looks like some color blind person made the original article. Unfortunately since I have no background on working with color or interest to fight whoever made this obvious mistake I'll leave it up experts get some betting backing research on what the used RGB value should be. 88.115.115.16 (talk) 17:49, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

External links modified
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Baby blue eyes issues
I have some concerns about this article. My present focus is the section "baby blue eyes".

One way to express my concern is to discuss how this article might be used by a reader. Imagine a school child being given an assignment to do some research about the color " baby blue eyes". The instructor is given the class some appropriate warnings — they should be very cautious about using Wikipedia for research, and can only use information from Wikipedia if they confirm that the information they choose to use its backed up by a source.

That pupil reads this article and feels confident identifying baby blue eyes as a unique color whose color attributes have the hex triplet:
 * #A1CAF1

This seems like a plausible conclusion.

However, I have a few issues.

If you start with the embedded link in the color coordinate template to Plochere, you find it's a dead link. That's not a good start, and probably should be addressed but let's understand the scope of the issues first.

Instead of using the link and the color coordinate template, use the link at the end of the text, which does have a link to a web archive site. That page does have a reference to baby blue eyes, and the site also supports the hex triplet.

However, while it is acceptable to use a web archive link, I'm troubled by the fact that the company has a current working site Plochere Color System Home But I wasn't able to find a reference to that color or that hex triplet on the site. That might mean I just don't know how to look, but it troubles me. If we were talking about an archaic name, identified as such, I'd have absolutely no problem using a web archive link and the fact that the current site doesn't have such information may mean that the company no longer supports that color. However, the article is suggesting that it's not an archaic term and in fact, I don't think it is an archaic term. I am troubled by the fact that the reference for the color is to a company which doesn't seem to currently have any relevant information.

The next problem can be seen at that web archive page. Note that, in addition to an entry for baby blue eyes with hex code #a1caf1, there is a second entry for baby blue eyes with a different hex code #b3bce2.

Now we see the beginning of what will be a theme; there may be multiple hex codes associated with this name. While in many cases, that will be because different companies have slightly different colors we have at least one situation of a single company with two different hex codes for the same name.

As an additional complication, note that the site has a color with a different name, baby blue, but with the same hex code as one of the baby blue eyes #a1caf1. I note this article has an entry for baby blue with different hex codes.

If one pokes around on the Internet, we can find multiple sites all using baby blue eyes as a color but with a range of hex values.

For example:
 * Hex Value: #A1CAF1 sample Company: Plochere Link
 * Hex Value: #B3BCE2 sample Company: Plochere Link
 * Hex Value: #83A2B4 sample Company: Sherwin williams Link
 * Hex Value: #93B5CE sample Company: Glidden Home Depot
 * Hex Value: #75A2B9 sample Company: PPG Home Depot
 * Hex Value: #3C81CC sample Company: PRITI NYC PRITI NYC (Various values)
 * Hex Value: #92B2CB sample Company: Glidden Glidden (Various values)
 * Hex Value: #92B2CC sample Company: PPG PPG
 * Hex Value: #C3DCE3 sample Company: NUGenesis NUGenesis

Note that many of these colors are quite similar to each other but the last entry in this list is an exception with a very different color. Note also that in some cases there was a uniform swatch. A color picker generated a unique value any place on the swatch, but others had a variety of options and I chose a representative location to select the X value using a color picker

My tentative conclusion is that baby blue eyes is a real color but not one for which there is complete agreement on its color attributes. The paint companies seem to cluster in a narrow range but other companies aren't necessarily so close. I think this should be reflected in the article to disabuse the reader of the impression that baby blue eyes is uniquely defined in terms of its color attributes.

While that suggest a way to rewrite this article, I'm here because I'm working on List_of_colors:_A–F, and I haven't yet figured out how to populate that list with a range of values or with multiple values.-- S Philbrick (Talk)  21:10, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Bubbles
The color was removed here with the summary no indication that this name has any use outside of this site.

There are many hits with a google search for "E7FEFF" and "bubbles", though it's reasonable to conclude that much of it is WP:CIRCULAR, as many of those sites don't seem to bother citing their sources. However, there is this XONA page (date confirmed as 2006-03-15 by archive). Bubbles was not added to until 2008-09-19T02:32:11Z, 2.5 years later. Doucette's source was apparently Resene Paints, which has a 2001 copyright notice, but was unfortunately not archived until 2007 (still pre-dating WP, though).

I think it's reasonable to include it here. —[ Alan M 1 (talk) ]— 22:03, 29 March 2019 (UTC)


 * Found a current listing on a Resene site, but it gives, so I'm more confused now. Trivialist (talk) 22:15, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
 * They may have changed their color online and/or physically as technology and even tastes have evolved. Electronic colour measurement and conversions addresses some of the tech issues. That color, "Resene Bubbles", is shown at Encycolorpedia, where it is called "Resene I Spy G95-014-202" (the G number matches Resene's as well). It's substantially less blue than the Bubbles we have, and I don't think it would reasonably be considered a "baby blue" – it looks more green to me, though I have no idea if my 2018 laptop display and Windows OS is well-calibrated. I'll also note that Encycolorpedia calls #e7feff "Bubbles / Crayola Baby Blue", so hunting down the Crayola source may be useful to retain the color. —[  Alan M 1 (talk) ]— 23:16, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Baby Blue disambiguation: aerobatics team
Baby Blue is the name of the official aerobatics team of the Danish air force. Unfortunately, so far there also seems to be no wikipedia page on this topic. Still, I would find it important to list this meaning on the disambiguation page. 2A00:20:3044:AFF0:B130:343F:8FB7:600E (talk) 22:19, 22 January 2024 (UTC)