# How common are real red-heads?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-are-real-red-heads/316625>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 11, 2005, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-are-real-red-heads/316625 "2005-08-11T19:33:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Draelin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce73a5/32.png) [@Draelin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Draelin)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-are-real-red-heads/316625/41 "2005-08-12T20:53:21Z")

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> [@Hello Again](#):
>
> Supposedly there are two types of redhead coloring: “autumn type” with brown or hazel eyes and medium/golden complexion and “Celtic type” with blue or green eyes and very pale/white complexion. I’m definitely “autmn type” with brown eyes and no freckles – my family is Polish, where there is also a cluster of red hair. Everyone else in my immediate family has black hair, and I’m given to understand that red is actually a variant on black, rather than a variant on blonde or brown.

What about those of us with brown eyes and the pale/freckled complexion? Am I Auteltic? 🙂

My eyebrows are auburn, and while my hair isn’t the red it used to be, it’s still too red to be called auburn, as well. Both of my grandfathers had red hair (they’re both still alive, they just don’t have any hair at all, anymore), one of mostly Irish/Scottish/English descent, the other Lithuanian. I’ve got an aunt, an uncle, and a cousin on the Celtic side–all of whom have blue eyes–but I’m the only redhead on the other.

My best friend is a true Celtic redhead, and everyone thinks we’re sisters, despite the fact that she’s eight inches taller than me, built completely different, has blue eyes and a different skin tone, and _we look nothing alike_.

And for the love of all you hold sacred, if you see a redheaded kid, don’t go on and on and on about how cute the red hair is. When I was little, I felt like a mutant in my mostly-Italian-ancestry hometown, and wanted nothing more than to be like everyone else. Red hair is something that a lot of women don’t like having until they’re older.

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**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2005, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-common-are-real-red-heads/316625/42 "2005-08-12T21:08:49Z")

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I always had the hots for redheaded men.

I remember to this day a boy in college. I didn’t know him except by sight. He had long, copper penny red hair with gold highlights which he kept clean and well-tended. He would play frisbee on the college lawn, shirtless, with his long red hair swishing about in the sun. Ahhh, memories.

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