# Why do so many british people do have dark hair and eyes? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 30, 2015, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368 "2015-08-30T02:41:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![northernanglishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/13edae/32.png) [@northernanglishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/northernanglishman)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2016, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/81 "2016-02-09T05:28:52Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > What makes the OP think Brits are “Northern European”? They’re about as close to Southern Europe as Northern, historically - all those centuries of being Celtic and then Roman, a few hundred years blip of Anglo-Saxon, then back to being dominated by Normans, who were a Norse/French mix who generally are depicted as a mix of blond and brun (e.g. in Bayeux). Brits are Northern Europeans! Firstly geographically located there and genetically they are much closer to Northern and Central Europeans than they would to Southern ones. Roman blood did have any significant impact on the Brits populace as a whole. Iron Age Brits were very similar to other Northern Europeans genetically. Blue eyes are the most common eye color in the British Isles, commonest in southeastern Scotland. Perfect example. [http://i2.listal.com/image/2022822/936full-kerry-condon.jpg](http://i2.listal.com/image/2022822/936full-kerry-condon.jpg) Red hair runs in the highest frequency worldwide in the British Isles, approximately 20 million Brits have the gene responsible for red hair. [http://jp2.r0tt.com/l\_3acf6b50-8e31-11e1-8a1a-dd34d5500002.jpg](http://jp2.r0tt.com/l_3acf6b50-8e31-11e1-8a1a-dd34d5500002.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![northernanglishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/13edae/32.png) [@northernanglishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/northernanglishman)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2016, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/82 "2016-02-09T05:39:44Z")
> [@RebrandingHumor](#): > > I’m talking about averages, very few people in the UK had the germanic looks or blonde hair alone (which isnt mousy or lightbrown but natural goldern hair). > > I’ve been to most countries in europe and I’ve always found blondes (even those blondes with nearly white hair) to be fairly common and even dominant in some areas (specially norhtern europe, aka scandinavia,finland, netherlands and parts of germany) however in the UK I hardly came across any real blonde, and most people wasnt even light higher but had a quite dark shade or brown, plain brunette or even black hair. I saw even more blonde people in the slavic countries,such as russia, czech, poland, baltics, (in fact they are quite common there but more of a darker shade of blonde than in northern europe) than in the UK where brunette people clearly dominates the mix. Reddish hair is very common in Wales, at 38% of the Welsh populace carry the gene. This colour is much more scarce on continental Europe.Only 3.1% of the Whites in the U.K. have the actual black hair, most of the dark hair is dark brown! Take a good look at the reddish hair of these Welsh people, only 1-2% of Europe has red hair! [![](https://cdn.soticservers.net/tools/images/players/photos/2012/wru/128/320x375/62237.jpg) ](https://cdn.soticservers.net/tools/images/players/photos/2012/wru/128/320x375/62237.jpg) [http://www.s4c.cymru/corcymru\_2009/img/plant\_ceredigion\_home.jpg](http://www.s4c.cymru/corcymru_2009/img/plant_ceredigion_home.jpg) [http://www.watsdyke.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/st-davids-day1.jpg](http://www.watsdyke.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/st-davids-day1.jpg) ! ---
**Author:** ![northernanglishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/13edae/32.png) [@northernanglishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/northernanglishman)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2016, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/83 "2016-02-09T05:48:26Z")
> [@RebrandingHumor](#): > > Most people in adulthood are either middle-blond (medium blonde) or darkblond/lightbrown, platinium or light brown isnt the majority in adulthood. > > ALthough It depends what you consider an adult, I have know many people in their 20’s or even early 30’s with very light blonde , some even platinium blonde, like this man for example… > > [http://mediadb.kicker.de/1999/fussball/spieler/xl/242\_9\_20121129154717367.jpg](http://mediadb.kicker.de/1999/fussball/spieler/xl/242_9_20121129154717367.jpg) > > The more “average” blond color for germanic people are something like this… > > [http://images.cdn.fourfourtwo.com/sites/fourfourtwo.com/files/styles/inline-image/public/pa-74682.jpg?itok=KKfUhO7O](http://images.cdn.fourfourtwo.com/sites/fourfourtwo.com/files/styles/inline-image/public/pa-74682.jpg?itok=KKfUhO7O) > > Which is rather blond/golden blond… None of those two are not average in either Germany or the Netherlands, if they are, then this Irishman is too in Ireland, right? [http://cdn2.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/migration\_catalog/article25731178.ece/ALTERNATES/h342/pic981484](http://cdn2.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/migration_catalog/article25731178.ece/ALTERNATES/h342/pic981484) Most Dutch or German have brown (light) hair, not blonde. ---
**Author:** ![northernanglishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/13edae/32.png) [@northernanglishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/northernanglishman)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2016, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/84 "2016-02-09T06:49:42Z")
> [@RebrandingHumor](#): > > Its not about proximity, I guess history plays a mayor role, most welsh have brown or black hair with hazel, blue, brown or green eyes (not really a dominant eye color). Dutch people for instance dont live that far from that area and they are definitely majority blond people with blue eyes. Nope. Most Welsh have brown hair, followed by blonde and red, then black. Additionally the dominant eye colour is blue. The most common combination is a pale skin, brown hair and blue eyes. The second commonest eye colour is green. Hazel and brown are in the minority. You should not be surprised to see a Welsh person who has black hair and piercing blue eyes! Wales has a lower frequency of blonde hair than eastern regions of Britain, but not that of blue and light eyes. In fact, Wales has a slightly higher percentage of blue eyes than Southwest, Southeast, East England. Wales is definitely not less blue-eyed than the Netherlands, is only slightly less blonde, but with much more red hair! ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2016, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/85 "2016-02-09T16:22:22Z")
> [@RebrandingHumor](#): > > Belgium has many blondes too, maybe not as many as scandinavia but flemish people have a lot of blondes, brussels and the french speaking part have more brown haired people though… Maybe you have sticked in highly multicultural cities, I have been to rural Sweden and Denmark, including mid cities, small cities and towns and the majority are blonde, same goes for the Netherlands. Not when I was in Belgium or the Netherlands; maybe there were _more_ blondes than the US average, but most people still had something that we’d call “brown hair” Similarly, Scotland wasn’t overrun with redheads; there were more of them there, but most everyone still had brown hair of some shade. It’s a consequence of brown hair being more dominant; to get really blonde or really red hair, you pretty much have to avoid the brown hair genes altogether, because they tend to mask/darken other hues you may have. So it’s entirely possible that places like Northern Europe may have more people carrying the blond hair genes, but it also stands to reason that most of them are still likely to be brown haired. The other thing to keep in mind is that one person’s dark blonde may be another person’s light brown; I suspect that this is the primary cause of confusion here- it’s entirely ambiguous what’s blonde and what’s light brown, much like the difference between auburn and red headed, or strawberry blonde and red headed. ---
**Author:** ![northernanglishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/13edae/32.png) [@northernanglishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/northernanglishman)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2016, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/86 "2016-02-10T23:12:47Z")
> [@GrumpyBunny](#): > > Pssst! There are even black Britons! Naomi Campbell and Idris Elba spring to mind as two particularly gorgeous and talented ones. (And dammit, Naomi Campbell is married to the blond and still-lovely David Bowie, and I still like the woman!) There are Black people all over Europe. ---
**Author:** ![northernanglishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/13edae/32.png) [@northernanglishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/northernanglishman)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/87 "2016-02-11T00:00:55Z")
> [@RebrandingHumor](#): > > I’ve visited the UK quite recently and it struck me how many people do have really dark hair (Id say 70-80% of males I came across had either darkbrown/black or plain brown hair) in the Isles , and brown eyes were far commoner than I though… In the area of southern england and wales I stayed about half of the people had brown or hazel eyes…, I thought Britain was a northern european nation (racially-wise) but guess I was sort of wrong. BTW, I’m not talking about recent foriegners from south asia or caribbean nations or other parts of the world but 100% brits. almost every blonde girl I saw walking down the streets had a clear underline of dark hair, which means they were bottle blondes. > We have many examples of famous brits fitting the dark stereotype, russell brands, orlando bloom, rowan atkinson (mr bean),the 4 beatles, catherine zeta jones, tom jones, bryan May (queen), gallagher brothers (oasis), simon cowell, sean connery, jeff beck, ritchie blackmoore, cheryl cole, victoria beckham, kerry louise (porn star), robbie williams, footballers michael carrick, joe cole, john terry, frank lampard, gary cahill, etc… what about gordon brown or nick griffin? none very nordic looking or blonde… Exaggerations are not good. I could also make a long lists of Germans or Dutch people who are dark-haired. ---
**Author:** ![northernanglishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/13edae/32.png) [@northernanglishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/northernanglishman)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/88 "2016-02-11T02:47:39Z")
> [@RebrandingHumor](#): > > Anglosaxon and viking blood is minor in England and Scotland compared to pre celtic blood What nonsense are you talking about? Studies have already pointed that 50-100% of the Y-chromosome sequences of Central English population is of Anglo-Saxon derivation and identical to those of Frisian populations. The study was published in 2002! Now the most recent study by a German university in 2016, which published their finds, that in the overall English DNA, 38% is Anglo-Saxon not counting Vikings and for the Welsh and Scottish DNA is 30%! The Anglo-Saxons did eventually intermix with the Celtic-speaking people of Britain. Initially Saxons were usually male warriors, thus many took Keltic wives. So no Anglo-Saxon blood alone was not minor. In East England, the overall genome ranged anywhere from 25% to 50%! ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2016, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/89 "2016-02-11T04:21:08Z")
Just so you know, the person you are replying to hasn’t logged on to the message board since September. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2016, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/90 "2016-02-13T22:31:49Z")
> [@northernanglishman](#): > > Most Welsh have brown hair, followed by blonde and red, then black. Additionally the dominant eye colour is blue. …The second commonest eye colour is green. Do you have any evidence for your claim that the most common eye colour in Wales is blue, followed by green. Because if true that would be extraordinary. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2016, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/91 "2016-02-19T01:19:17Z")
> [@RebrandingHumor](#): > > I’ve visited the UK quite recently and it struck me how many people do have really dark hair (Id say 70-80% of males I came across had either darkbrown/black or plain brown hair) in the Isles , and brown eyes were far commoner than I though… In the area of southern england and wales I stayed about half of the people had brown or hazel eyes…, I thought Britain was a northern european nation (racially-wise) but guess I was sort of wrong. BTW, I’m not talking about recent foriegners from south asia or caribbean nations or other parts of the world but 100% brits. almost every blonde girl I saw walking down the streets had a clear underline of dark hair, which means they were bottle blondes. > We have many examples of famous brits fitting the dark stereotype, russell brands, orlando bloom, rowan atkinson (mr bean),the 4 beatles, catherine zeta jones, tom jones, bryan May (queen), gallagher brothers (oasis), simon cowell, sean connery, jeff beck, ritchie blackmoore, cheryl cole, victoria beckham, kerry louise (porn star), robbie williams, footballers michael carrick, joe cole, john terry, frank lampard, gary cahill, etc… what about gordon brown or nick griffin? none very nordic looking or blonde… It is probably genetically they are more mixed or similar to people in France than Europe that more blonde hair. Southern Europe is more typical of what you describe here. ---
**Author:** ![northernanglishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/13edae/32.png) [@northernanglishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/northernanglishman)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2016, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/92 "2016-03-31T22:55:14Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Do you have any evidence for your claim that the most common eye colour in Wales is blue, followed by green. > > Because if true that would be extraordinary. Extraordinary? Why? Wales is in Northern Europe, the fact that there is a higher percentage of Welsh people with blue eyes than brown shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone! The other way round would be extraordinary. Now, this has been substantiated by a relatively recent study done by the ScottishDNA Project led by geneticist Alistair Moffat. They found that the commonest eye colour in the British Isles is blue! However, not all regions are equally blue-eyed, the northern parts of the British Isles have higher frequencies than the southern parts such as SouthWest England, Wales, etc… Proof: > **[Castle in the clouds](https://www.bing.com/?FORM=GPFAIL)** > > In Japan's Gifu prefecture, Gujō Hachiman Castle s ---
**Author:** ![northernanglishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/13edae/32.png) [@northernanglishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/northernanglishman)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2016, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/93 "2016-04-01T01:12:52Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Do you have any evidence for your claim that the most common eye colour in Wales is blue, followed by green. > > Because if true that would be extraordinary. Extraordinary? Why should it be? Wales is in Northern Europe, not Southern Europe. thus, we should not be suprised to see that the most Welsh are blue than brown-eyed. This is proven by ScottishDNA Project study done in 2014 led by geneticist Alistair Moffat, that the most common eye colour in the British Isles is blue! However, not all regions are equally blue-eyed, there are variations as in every country. The northern regions have higher frequency than those of the south like Southwest, Southeast, East England. Despite the fact that East England has most likely the highest “Germanic Dna” input from the Anglo-Saxons, it is not the most blue-eyed region of Britain. > **[Castle in the clouds](https://www.bing.com/?FORM=GPFAIL)** > > In Japan's Gifu prefecture, Gujō Hachiman Castle s ---
**Author:** ![northernanglishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/13edae/32.png) [@northernanglishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/northernanglishman)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2016, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/94 "2016-04-01T01:25:44Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Do you have any evidence for your claim that the most common eye colour in Wales is blue, followed by green. > > Because if true that would be extraordinary. Yes, this health news magazine has published the truth. [https://www.healthnewsuk.co.uk/family-health-news/blue-eyes-more-common-in-britain-than-any-other-eye-colour/](https://www.healthnewsuk.co.uk/family-health-news/blue-eyes-more-common-in-britain-than-any-other-eye-colour/) ---
**Author:** ![northernanglishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/13edae/32.png) [@northernanglishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/northernanglishman)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2016, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/95 "2016-04-01T01:41:03Z")
Frequency of blue eyes (excluding gray or green eyes) in some Caucasoid populations Denmark - 50.7% Germany - 35% Belgium - 28.9% Switzerland - 28% France - 20.2% Spain - 11.75% Portugal - 8.5% Algeria - 2.6% Morocco - 2.1% Tunisia - 1.2 ---
**Author:** ![northernanglishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/13edae/32.png) [@northernanglishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/northernanglishman)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2016, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/96 "2016-04-01T01:54:42Z")
Frequency of blue eyes in the British Isles Southeast Scotland - 57% Connacht (Ireland) - 53% Leinster (Ireland) - 52% Ulster (Ireland) - 50% Munster (Ireland) - 50% Central England - 50% Southwest Scotland - 49% Northwest Scotland - 49% Yorkshires (England) - 49% Central Scotland - 48% Northeast Scotland - 48% Northeast England - 47% Wales - 45% Southeast England - 44% East England - 41% Southwest England - 35% Both Ireland and Scotland are within the Scandinvian level when it comes to light or non-brown eyes. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2016, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/97 "2016-04-01T09:48:24Z")
> [@RebrandingHumor](#): > > I’m talking about averages, very few people in the UK had the germanic looks or blonde hair alone (which isnt mousy or lightbrown but natural goldern hair). > > I’ve been to most countries in europe and I’ve always found blondes (even those blondes with nearly white hair) to be fairly common and even dominant in some areas (specially norhtern europe, aka scandinavia,finland, netherlands and parts of germany) however in the UK I hardly came across any real blonde, and most people wasnt even light higher but had a quite dark shade or brown, plain brunette or even black hair. I saw even more blonde people in the slavic countries,such as russia, czech, poland, baltics, (in fact they are quite common there but more of a darker shade of blonde than in northern europe) than in the UK where brunette people clearly dominates the mix. I’m sitting in an office in Stockholm right now. If I stand up from my desk I can see fifteen people. Three are blonde and I am pretty sure one of those is a bottle blonde. The rest are dark haired. One woman is, hmm, “mousy”. I forgot to count myself as well, I’m a redhead. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2016, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/98 "2016-04-01T09:51:10Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > For what it’s worth, half of my familial background is from Norway. To the best of my knowledge, none of them are or were blonde. In Sweden kids seem to be very blonde but they lose it as they get older. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2016, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/99 "2016-04-01T09:56:00Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > This. > > The majority of adult blondes seem to have got it from a bottle. Swedish children are very often blonde and the hair darkens as they age. In my Stockholm office right now I can see about twenty to thirty people, about 70-30 male-female split. Three are blonde. Shit. I didn’t realise that this was an old thread that I’d already posted in. Good to see those three people are still there keeping it real, though. ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368/100 "2016-04-01T17:53:36Z")
All that Berber DNA (well, at least in Scotland): [Study reveals 'extraordinary' DNA of people in Scotland - BBC News](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-17740638) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-british-people-do-have-dark-hair-and-eyes/729368.md?page=6)