Name color

Pirates have different colored names based on who or what they are:

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.

Red - Mercenaries, a stronger type of swabbie.
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, while accounts that are 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 the /who command.
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 subscribed to the Golden Doubloon Club on the Crimson Ocean.

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 difficult to tell if said pirate is on-duty or not).