In the Japanese name, they were called 'Murasaki no kumo' (meaning 'purple colored cloud') as seen in Yakumo misho (a book on tanka poetics written in Kamakura era) and Goshui wakashu (Later gleanings of Japanese poems).
和名では八雲御抄や後拾遺和歌集にみえる「紫の雲」などがある。