Name color

Pirates have different colored names based on who/what they be:

White - Non-Player Pirates (NPPs), sometimes known as "bots," although "swabbies" is the preferred term. Most NPPs have a very limited vocabulary but are sometimes mistaken for human players by new players not expecting to encounter pirates controlled by Artificial Intelligence. NPPs generally have two words in their names; many Brigand Kings have three.

On rare occasions, white names which have only one word in them are used for special player-controlled characters.

Green - Greenies are players who have logged in for less than about fifteen hours across all oceans combined on their current account. It is possible for a greenie to be a subscriber. There are multiple shades of green. Completely new accounts start off with bright green names; accounts that approaching yellow status have yellow-green names.
Yellow - Players who have been logged in for about fifteen or more hours across all oceans combined.
Pink - On-duty volunteer greeters who assist greenies adjust and learn about the game. Only greenies, greeters, and ocean masters can see the Pink name while wandering around and using /who.
Blue - Ocean Masters and Developers. A retired Ocean Master can opt to retain a blue name.
Violet - Used for Brigand Kings when they appear in person. As of January 2009, this has only happened once, with Vargas the Mad during the 2008 Halloween events.
Purple - Pirates who subscribe to the Golden Doubloon Club on Crimson Ocean. Subscription yields 20 doubloons per month and giveaways.

Changing name colors

Greeters may change their name color from pink to yellow and vice versa using the /duty command. Shortly after release 2005-10-20, it was possible for an unsubscribed greeter to be seen swapping from a green to yellow name if seen through the eyes of a yellow-named pirate.
Ocean Masters have the power to change a player's name color to pink or white and back to yellow again.
If an on-duty Greeter has a white name, it overrides the pink name (making it semi-difficult to tell if said pirate is on-duty or not).