Turquoise or Aqua - Is There a Difference?

Turquoise Settee - see my pinterest board

I have a lovely set of turquoise and cream checked compact wingback chairs for sale (Etsy and eBay) and a customer wrote to ask whether they were more turquoise or aqua.  I had thought teal or even duck egg blue were also in the running for similar colors but did not know how to respond to her question. I looked up definitions and examples:

Turquoise is the name of a bluish green color, based on the gem of the same name. The word turquoise comes from the French for Turkish, as the gem was originally imported from Turkey. The first recorded use of turquoise as a color name in English was in 1573. source

I also asked the question:  What is the difference between turquoise and aqua and found several answers including this one:

 Many people have the idea that aqua and turquoise are the same color because the hue of both is so similar. In fact they are so much alike that it is difficult to be able to tell them apart. They both belong to the color spectrum group that is called cyan spectrum. There are three colors in this group – aqua, turquoise and aquamarine. All three have traces of blue and green that make them hard to differentiate between them. link

I thought I was getting closer until I asked for images of turquoise - both the color and decorated settings - and found the spectrum ran from very greenish to very bluish.

So now I am even less certain about how to answer the question about my chairs - the range is great and I love every hue of this color.

Here is an image from my pinterest board juxtaposed with the chairs in question - my TURQUOISE wingback chairs!

What do you think about this color group and how would you describe the difference? Regardless of the name (... a rose by any other name would smell as sweet ...), it is a great color and goes with so many other colors both those in the same blue - green family and others dramatically different.

Just one color palette with great color combinations!  

In part two of this posting series, I will discuss decorating with turquoise (or aqua, or teal, or duck egg blue)!