# Different Colored Eyes **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 17, 2001, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-colored-eyes/58368 "2001-03-17T13:09:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mooney252](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7c8e57/32.png) [@Mooney252](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mooney252)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-colored-eyes/58368/1 "2001-03-17T13:09:49Z")
Once in my life I’ve encountered a person with eyes of different colors – one blue/green, one tan. Quite an enchanting young lady . . . She was a normally healthy person; taking no medications that I was aware of; and it was congenital (we went to school together for 10-12 years). How common is this? What do we know about the cause? ---
**Author:** ![fatherjohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b2d939/32.png) [@fatherjohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fatherjohn)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-colored-eyes/58368/2 "2001-03-17T13:19:58Z")
For what it’s worth, the “master” has a collumn on different colored eyes. [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a971205.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a971205.html) ---
**Author:** ![Mooney252](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7c8e57/32.png) [@Mooney252](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mooney252)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-colored-eyes/58368/3 "2001-03-17T13:34:26Z")
Thanks fatherjohn – Cecil’s comments were the most cogent that I’d seen. It’s nice to see that there’s a name for the phenomenon, ‘heterochromia.’ I did do a ‘Search’ before I posted but didn’t find that three-year old note of Cecil’s! ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-colored-eyes/58368/4 "2001-03-17T18:16:17Z")
My Bathroom Reader calendar said on one of its pages a few weeks ago that 1/500 people have one blue and one brown eye. Whether or not you trust the accuracy of the Bathroom Reader is up to you. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-colored-eyes/58368/5 "2001-03-17T18:39:44Z")
For what it’s worth, this is MUCH more common in cats, especially white ones. I have a white cat with one blue eye and one brown eye. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-colored-eyes/58368/6 "2001-03-17T21:50:14Z")
> [@](#): > > For what it’s worth, this is MUCH more common in cats, especially white ones. I have a white cat with one blue eye and one brown eye. I once clipped a picture from the _National Enquirer_ like this. It showed a pretty young woman, named Chanel Baxter, and her white cat Roche–each of them had one blue eye and one brown eye. (I think on both woman and cat the blue eye was the left eye.) Tommy Smothers apparently has one blue eye and one green eye. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![funneefarmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9fc348/32.png) [@funneefarmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funneefarmer)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2001, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-colored-eyes/58368/7 "2001-03-17T22:20:15Z")
There are a couple of old threads around here somewhere about this. I have one eye that is blue and one eye that is half blue and half brown. I know another guy a couple of towns over that has blue eyes with very prominent brown spots. I’d call them specks but they’re a little too big to be called specks. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Pinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dr.Pinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Pinky)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2001, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-colored-eyes/58368/8 "2001-03-18T02:16:24Z")
I dated a woman in Chicago who’s eyes would turn violet after a jolly good rodgering… now THAT’s a different color. Walking in the woods last weekend, I saw a wolf with cornflower blue eyes. My 3 yr old son said Doggie! as I picked him up & swiftly walked back toward civilization saying no, that’s not a doggie. My boss said the natives have a word for that, but I don’t recall what she said it was. ---
**Author:** ![tygerbryght](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9a28c/32.png) [@tygerbryght](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tygerbryght)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2001, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/different-colored-eyes/58368/9 "2001-03-18T08:36:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dr.Pinky \* > \*\*…Walking in the woods last weekend, I saw a wolf with cornflower blue eyes. My 3 yr old son said Doggie! as I picked him up & swiftly walked back toward civilization saying no, that’s not a doggie. My boss said the natives have a word for that, but I don’t recall what she said it was. \*\* Maybe the word is “Siberian Husky.” 😃