From the Unicode FAQ: Emoji and Dingbats, bolding mine:
Q: What about characters whose name specifies a color?
A: Some of the characters from the core emoji sets have names that include a color term, for example, BLUE HEART or ORANGE BOOK. These color terms in the names do not imply any requirement about how a character must be presented; they are intended only to help identify the corresponding character in the core emoji sets. Even names of symbols such as BLACK MEDIUM SQUARE or WHITE MEDIUM SQUARE are not meant to indicate that the corresponding character must be presented in black or white, respectively; rather, the use of black and white is generally just to contrast filled versus outline shapes, or a darker color fill versus a lighter color fill. [PE]
There was quite a bit of debate on the mailing lists at the time on whether these should be named with colors, or generic names that didn’t reference color, and whether that was setting a bad precendent. The Emoji Symbols: Background Data includes “old names” such as APPLE-1 instead of RED APPLE and BOOK-3 instead of ORANGE BOOK.
The final names use this principle:
Symbols with an inherent color shall bear this color in their
name unless the entity denoted by the name has identifies the color
anyway (e.g., a BANANA is uniquely yellow and therefore does
not need to be called YELLOW BANANA, while a RED APPLE must be
named so as there are also green apples).