The Crayola color Indian Red was changed similarly (now chestnut.)  It
was named after India Red Dye #something or other.  But perception was
reality.  I mean that in a serious way.  I doesn't matter what it was, it only
matter what people think it is.  It became offensive and there wasn't any
changing that, so it had to go.

Of course someone from India might actually take offense to seeing
Indian Red as offensive.

Doug Peterson
another two months...
On 5 Aug 2005 at 21:52, TODD NIELSON wrote:

These days, it seems, just about any name is bound to offend somebody.
 I offer this: Colgate dropped the word "Red" from its nickname to
become simply the "Raiders" a few years ago.  Not because the word
"red" in their old nickname was a Native American reference, but
because they felt it could be *construed* as one. So, not wanting to
offend, they changed it. I suppose this is an extreme example (imagine
if Cornell followed suit and simply became the "Big."  JTW would need
to revamp his entire site!), but the point is that if nicknames need
to be kept PC its nearly impossible to know where to draw the line.

-Todd