h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I haven't done proper etymological research on this yet, but could the reason orange variations weren't mentioned until the 16th century be that before that the colour was called either red or yellow? This hypothesis is based on a vague recollection that orange in Norwegian used to be "fire yellow" recently (a couple hundred years ago) and that according to Merriam-Websters the first mention of 'orange' in English was in the 14th century when it appeared as the name of the fruit of the same colour.

That's an interesting point, and I don't know whether you're right or not.

I think the orange carrot that we eat today was bred in the 16/17th century for William of Orange (or some other Dutch Royal Family member).