diff --git a/pygments/lexers/data.py b/pygments/lexers/data.py
index e7d0a8436d..d1887304c7 100644
--- a/pygments/lexers/data.py
+++ b/pygments/lexers/data.py
@@ -231,7 +231,7 @@ def callback(lexer, match, context):
             # whitespaces separating tokens
             (r'[ ]+', Whitespace),
             # key with colon
-            (r'''([^#,:?\[\]{}"'\n]+)(:)(?=[ ]|$)''',
+            (r'''([^#,?\[\]{}"'\n]+)(:)(?=[ ]|$)''',
              bygroups(Name.Tag, set_indent(Punctuation, implicit=True))),
             # tags, anchors and aliases,
             include('descriptors'),
diff --git a/tests/snippets/yaml/test_yaml_colon_in_key.txt b/tests/snippets/yaml/test_yaml_colon_in_key.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..9f3d313666
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/snippets/yaml/test_yaml_colon_in_key.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+# Colon in the key name is accepted by the YAML specs too
+
+---input---
+foo:bar: value
+
+---tokens---
+'foo:bar'     Name.Tag
+':'           Punctuation
+' '           Text.Whitespace
+'value'       Literal.Scalar.Plain
+'\n'          Text.Whitespace
diff --git a/tests/snippets/yaml/test_yaml_colon_in_key_double.txt b/tests/snippets/yaml/test_yaml_colon_in_key_double.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..6f68b6d37e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/snippets/yaml/test_yaml_colon_in_key_double.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+# Colons in the key name is accepted by the YAML specs too
+
+---input---
+foo::bar: value
+
+---tokens---
+'foo::bar'    Name.Tag
+':'           Punctuation
+' '           Text.Whitespace
+'value'       Literal.Scalar.Plain
+'\n'          Text.Whitespace
diff --git a/tests/snippets/yaml/test_yaml_colon_in_key_start.txt b/tests/snippets/yaml/test_yaml_colon_in_key_start.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..60d4e2349a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/snippets/yaml/test_yaml_colon_in_key_start.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+# Colon at the beginning of the key name is accepted by the YAML specs too
+
+---input---
+:foo: value
+
+---tokens---
+':foo'        Name.Tag
+':'           Punctuation
+' '           Text.Whitespace
+'value'       Literal.Scalar.Plain
+'\n'          Text.Whitespace