Ethinicity and Hair/Eye color

[Guest Harlequin]

Out of curiosity, what ethnicity (or mixed ethnicity) would produce a person with white skin, black hair and green eyes?

As far as I can tell, naturally black hair seems a rarity amoung western caucasians, for some reason or another. Green eyes are also far less common than, say, blue or brown.

 

To get the ball rolling, I'm guesing Northern European is largely out of the question (fair hair and skin)...

 

Any suggestions?

[muhali3]

Demi Moore..doesn't she have all those characteristics? except i don't know if her hair is dyed or if she is wearing contacts. I would think someone mediterranean mixed with something could produce that being. However, to produce someone like that would be hard because of linked traits. For example, you don't see black hair blue-eyed people because those traits are not normally linked together on chromosomes.

[Hades]

i have black hair, green eyes and white skin. i am german and irish, although i tan very easily ironically.

[ku]

This is almost an impossible question to answer because we're taking something as fuzzy as ethnicity and using it to predict something as discrete and specific as eye color and hair color.

 

This is further complicated with the fact that ethnicity is also a product of culture, so we're taking about a social-cultural concept and using it to predict something biological like eye color. "Ethnicity is the cultural characteristics that connect a particular group or groups of people to each other. 'Ethnicity' is sometimes used as a euphemism for "race", or as a synonym for minority group. While ethnicity and race are related concepts, the concept of ethnicity is rooted in the idea of societal groups, marked especially by shared nationality, tribal afilliation, religious faith, shared language, or cultural and traditional origins and backgrounds, whereas race is rooted in the idea of biological classification of homo sapiens to subspecies according to morphological features such as skin color or facial characteristics."

 

Below is a list of ethnic groups:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups

[AzurePhoenix]

I don't think I've actually ever seen eyes I would call green. I know a girl with striking teal ones, but no green. Is it an actual green-green, or more of a hazel-like hue?

 

And that is a very difficult question mostly because we still don't know what gene combinations make each color show up in the phenotype. We know eye and hair and skin color are close to one another on the chromosome, so often correlate, but it's not that simple.

[galaxygirl]

I was born with black hair (colored strawberry blond now because the black looked odd with my pale skin) and green eyes. I'm Danish, Irish, and Native American.

[Flareon]

I don't think I've actually ever seen eyes I would call green. I know a girl with striking teal ones' date=' but no green. Is it an actual green-green, or more of a hazel-like hue?

[/quote']

 

There is no such thing as 'true green' eyes. My educated guess would be that there are two types of green eyes: ones that are originally blue with yellow fat deposits on them that blend to make green (they are most vivid), and hazel eyes that happen to pick up greenish hues easily from the environment.

[AzurePhoenix]

I suspected as much, but seeing those teal ones (a true turquoise hue) shook my faith in my own observations. Are there any other possible colors, no matter how rare?

[Meghan]

Im white with black hair and like a hazel brown that turn to a like a dark green and i get a tannish color when im in the sun.

[Iberian Wolf]

To produce a black haired person you could look for a Portuguese person for instance, i for example am a dark brown haired individual with green or part green eyes.

But this isnt a usual phenotype in Portugal but there are phenotypes like this in various countries.

[Uavjvakb2782]

Northern European ethnicities would probably actually be the ones in which this combination is most common, although you would likely see it at a non-negligible rate in Mediterranean ethnicities as well. I am Irish and Danish with near-black hair, light green eyes, and very pale skin and virtually all of my family members on the Irish side have this combination. It’s fairly common in Ireland (especially in the South of Ireland) as part of the “Black Irish” phenomenon.

[Peterkin]

Green eyes are uncommon. I have personally only encountered two people with true green (rather than hazel or teal) eyes; one Irish (with fair skin, freckles and red frizzy hair) one Polish, with dark brown hair, light tan skin (and very attractive dimples, but that's another issue).

Quote

Sixteen separate genes have been identified as contributing to eye color. So, no matter what eye color your parents have, yours could end up being just about any color. Green eyes naturally occur in all races of people.

  Europe has had so much migration and warfare over the centuries that no ethnicity is genetically 'pure'. In a few isolated hard-to-reach place, there may still be communities that have shared a small gene pool over many generations. (presumably, the  most harmful recessives have been bred out) But generally, given the wide spread and dominance of dark hair and eyes, and given the scope of Roman and Muslim conquests, black hair and brown or hazel eyes shouldn't be unusual anywhere.

And so many genes contribute to eye, hair and skin pigmentation, that almost any combination can turn up in any predominantly Caucasian population.

Red hair is also in a small minority, but it seems rumours of its extinction are premature.  

Edited September 21 by Peterkin

[StringJunky]

One of my female friends has a green and a blue eye. I'm sure there are more, but I'm only personally aware of her and David Bowie having that feature,

Edited September 21 by StringJunky

[exchemist]

4 hours ago, Peterkin said:

Green eyes are uncommon. I have personally only encountered two people with true green (rather than hazel or teal) eyes; one Irish (with fair skin, freckles and red frizzy hair) one Polish, with dark brown hair, light tan skin (and very attractive dimples, but that's another issue).

  Europe has had so much migration and warfare over the centuries that no ethnicity is genetically 'pure'. In a few isolated hard-to-reach place, there may still be communities that have shared a small gene pool over many generations. (presumably, the  most harmful recessives have been bred out) But generally, given the wide spread and dominance of dark hair and eyes, and given the scope of Roman and Muslim conquests, black hair and brown or hazel eyes shouldn't be unusual anywhere.

And so many genes contribute to eye, hair and skin pigmentation, that almost any combination can turn up in any predominantly Caucasian population.

Red hair is also in a small minority, but it seems rumours of its extinction are premature.  

I know a woman of Scots ancestry with green eyes. I once went out with a girl who had dark hair and grey eyes, who had part-Irish ancestry. Yesterday at the greengrocery stall I met an Irish girl with red hair and blue eyes. These unusual combinations do seem, anecdotally at least, to crop up in the Celtic nations. But it may all be a bit of a myth. After all, I understand the term "Celt" is pretty meaningless in terms of biological heredity, and is more of a cultural term.    

[StringJunky]

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

I know a woman of Scots ancestry with green eyes. I once went out with a girl who had dark hair and grey eyes, who had part-Irish ancestry. Yesterday at the greengrocery stall I met an Irish girl with red hair and blue eyes. These unusual combinations do seem, anecdotally at least, to crop up in the Celtic nations. But it may all be a bit of a myth. After all, I understand the term "Celt" is pretty meaningless in terms of biological heredity, and is more of a cultural term.    

Here's Afghan Sharbat Gula in 1985 who has notable green eyes. Her stern look is because she was forced to have the picture taken, which is considered bad manners for girls to expose their face  to men.

[exchemist]

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

Here's Afghan Sharbat Gula in 1985 who has notable green eyes. Her stern look is because she was forced to have the picture taken, which is considered bad manners for girls to expose their face  to men.

Yes, insensitive of the photographer. Even in western countries it is polite to ask permission, let alone in traditional muslim societies.  

[zapatos]

5 hours ago, exchemist said:

Yesterday at the greengrocery stall I met an Irish girl with red hair and blue eyes.

I know a woman with a strong Irish background who has red hair and blue eyes. She told me that is quite common in some parts of Ireland. Since both traits are recessive I guess the genetic population must not be heavily diluted in those places.

[TheVat]

11 hours ago, StringJunky said:

One of my female friends has a green and a blue eye. I'm sure there are more, but I'm only personally aware of her and David Bowie having that feature,

A bit embarrassed to say I didn't know Bowie had that oddity until he played Nikola Tesla in The Prestige.  

I'm a mix of Isles, Baltic, Russian, so there's range of eye shades in the family - mine have brown in the center with green surround.  Called this green for decades until a driver's license examiner pointed out, "that's actually hazel, honey."  One of those nice Midwest ladies who call everyone honey.  Later, the spouse and I were at a carnival where they had a fortuneteller, she specialized in eyes, said mine were dramatic and perceptive.  So then my wife goes in, returns and says that her eyes had also been deemed dramatic and perceptive.  Guess we were a good eye match.  

8 hours ago, exchemist said:

After all, I understand the term "Celt" is pretty meaningless in terms of biological heredity, and is more of a cultural term. 

Rather like Pict, another fairly heterogenous group with a label slapped on by outsiders.  

[StringJunky]

10 hours ago, TheVat said:

A bit embarrassed to say I didn't know Bowie had that oddity until he played Nikola Tesla in The Prestige.  

Turns out it was caused by being punched in the eye. 

Quote

Having been egged on by another friend "to stick one on him", and hearing Bowie falsely boasting he had been out with Carol, during break time at school Underwood "went over to him and just whacked him in the eye".

The pair made up soon afterwards even though the punch had permanently damaged the pupil in Bowie's left eye, meaning it would no longer contract even in bright lights, giving that eye the impression of being a different colour from his right one.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg2r9mvxz2o