Origins
The word 'orange' has an etymology that spans four language families and demonstrates one of linguistics' most entertaining phenomena: the loss of a consonant through misdivision. English 'orange' traces back through Old French 'orenge,' Arabic 'nāranj,' Persian 'nārang,' and Sanskrit 'nāraṅga' — and the most conspicuous change along this path is the disappearance of the initial 'n.'
The Sanskrit word 'nāraṅga' (नारङ्ग) meant the orange tree. Its further origin is uncertain; it may derive from a Dravidian source (compare Tamil 'nāram,' 'nāraṅkam'), suggesting that the fruit was known in southern India before the Sanskrit-speaking cultures of the north adopted both the fruit and its name. Some scholars have proposed a connection to a word meaning 'fragrant,' but this remains speculative.
From Sanskrit, the word passed to Persian as 'nārang' (نارنگ) and thence to Arabic as 'nāranj' (نارنج). Arab traders and the Islamic expansion carried both the fruit and the word across North Africa and into the Iberian Peninsula. The Moors introduced orange cultivation to Spain, and Spanish 'naranja' preserves the Arabic form with remarkable fidelity. Portuguese 'laranja' shows an unusual further change: the initial 'n' became 'l,' possibly through dissimilation from the second 'n' in the word.
French Influence
The critical transformation occurred in Old French and Old Provençal. Arabic 'nāranj' became Provençal 'auranja,' then Old French 'orenge' — with the initial 'n' lost through what linguists call 'misdivision' or 'metanalysis.' In the phrase 'une norenge' (an orange), French speakers reinterpreted the 'n' as belonging to the article 'une' rather than to the noun, yielding 'une orenge.' This is the same process by which English 'an apron' was originally 'a napron' (from Old French 'naperon'), 'an adder' was 'a nadder,' and 'a nickname' was 'an ekename.' The reanalysis was probably reinforced by association with the southern French city of Orange (whose name is actually of unrelated Celtic origin, from the Roman settlement 'Arausio') and with Old French 'or' (gold), both of which supported the 'o-' initial.
The English word 'orange' was borrowed from Old French in the early fourteenth century, first appearing around 1300 in reference to the fruit. The use of 'orange' as a color name came significantly later — not until the 1540s. Before the fruit arrived in England, the English language had no single word for the color we now call orange. The Anglo-Saxons described it as 'geoluhread' (yellow-red), and medieval English texts used phrases like 'between yellow and red.' The fruit gave its name to the color, not the other way around — a fact that surprises many English speakers.
Italian 'arancia' (the fruit) and 'arancione' (the color) show the same loss of initial 'n,' through the same misdivision process: 'una narancia' became 'una arancia.' German 'Orange' and Dutch 'oranje' were borrowed from French. The Dutch connection is politically significant: the House of Orange-Nassau, the Dutch royal family, takes its name from the Principality of Orange in southern France. The color orange became politically loaded in the Netherlands and in Ireland (where 'Orangemen' are Protestant supporters of William of Orange), creating secondary connotations that have nothing to do with citrus fruit.
Greek Origins
The oranges that first reached Europe were the bitter Seville oranges (Citrus aurantium), used primarily for marmalade and cooking. The sweet orange (Citrus sinensis) arrived later, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, brought by Portuguese traders directly from China. In many languages, the sweet orange is explicitly named for its Portuguese or Chinese origin: Greek 'portokáli' (πορτοκάλι, from 'Portugal'), Arabic 'burtuqāl,' Turkish 'portakal,' and Persian 'portegāl' all derive from 'Portugal.' The Chinese connection survives in German dialect: 'Apfelsine' (literally 'apple of China') is still used in northern Germany and Scandinavia.