Green Eyes, and Blue

My eyes are green. That's not at all unusual in my family. My mom's eyes were the same green as mine, and so are my brother's. My dad's eyes were also green, but with enough amber flecks that they might have been better referred to as hazel. My sister's eyes are definitely hazel green, with so many amber and gold highlights that her childhood friends often insisted she had cat eyes.

My husband, Bill, has beautiful blue eyes. All four of my children, even the adopted ones, have blue or blue-gray eyes. I thought that at least one of my eight grandchildren would have inherited my green eyes, but no, they all have blue or blue-gray eyes--every single one of them.

Blue eyes are really quite rare, with only 8-10% of the world's population possessing eyes of blue. Research indicates that all blue-eyed people share a single, common, Northern European ancestor whose blue eyes resulted from a genetic mutation a few thousand years ago. Because blue eyes are recessive, a friend of mine once expressed the opinion that, due to the recent normalization of intermarriage among races, brown eyes would eventually be the only eye color in the entire world. I suppose that’s a possibility.

Hazel eyes are even rarer than blue eyes, with around 5% of people throughout the world having hazel eyes, defined as a mix of green, brown, and gold. However, it is notable that roughly 18% of the US population have hazel eyes.

I was surprised to find that amber is a recognized eye color, characterized by a solid yellowish or copper shade and often mistaken for hazel, even though amber eyes lack any flecks of green or brown. About 5% of the global population have amber eyes, so they are really quite rare.

Gray eyes are considered to be the second-rarest eye color, with up to 3% of the population having gray eyes. But the least common eye color of all is green, with only 2% of the world's population having green eyes. Green eyes are most common among people of Germanic or Celtic descent, so it should come as no surprise to find that approximately 9% of the US population have green eyes.

Brown eyes, of course, are the most prevalent by far, with 70-80% of the population, world-wide, having brown eyes in hues ranging from caramel to almost black. I have at least one aunt with brown eyes, but the chances of any one of my direct descendents having brown eyes is currently very low, although I suppose I could have a brown-eyed great-grandchild someday, if their parent's genetics work out that way.

But maybe the newest grandchild, due in August, will have green eyes like mine. Only God knows for sure.





The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 

Matthew 6:22





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