The generic name, Dianthus, comes from dios, a reference to Jove, but also can mean divine and –anthos or flower. Flower of Jove or divine flower. "Pinks" usually refer to the smaller plants with single or double flowers. "Carnations" refer to the larger species with multiple whorls of petals.

Many of the species have been cultivated for hundreds of years and gardeners have created, accidentally or on-purpose, tens of thousands of hybrids. The photographed flowers are hybrid "China pinks", crosses between sweet Williams (D. barbatus L.) and China pinks (D. chinensis L.). These short-lived perennials were specially breed to flower profusely in the first year and are treated horticulturally as annuals.

The derivation of the name, pinkes, is uncertain. Pinkes were described as carnation in color from the Latin carnalis "flesh" referring to the varying shades of skin tones. (One must realize that "carnation" during the Middle Ages was a statement of European skin tones. It was not a case of prejudice; few Europeans of that time knew of people from outside of the continent.)

Pinkes was the plant and its flowers. Pink was not used to describe a color until 1678 and then for any color from bluish red to red, but usually a tint—the color mixed with white. Carnation, a color, came to be the name of a multi-petaled pink.

Pinking or cutting a zigzagged or scalloped edge is taken from the jagged tips of the petals of pinks. Tailors use pinking shears to pink the edges of fabrics. Pink, as a divine flower, came to mean beauty, a state of excellence—the pink of perfection or simply "in the pink".

(Compiled from: Hortus Third, Staff L.H. Bailey Hortorium, NY State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Macmillan, 1976; A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants, C. Brickell and J.D. Zuk, eds., American Horticultural Society, Dorling Kindersley, 1996; Composition of Scientific Words, R.W. Brown, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991; Taylor's Encyclopedia of Gardening, N. Taylor, 4^th ed., Houghton Mifflin, 1961; and The 1889 Century Dictionary posted in searchable DjVu format on the internet by Global Language Resources, 2001-2005.)