Two brown-eyed parents are likely to have a brown-eyed child, but could potentially have a child with blue, green or hazel eyes, depending on the combination of genes from each parent.
A blue and a green-eyed parent will have all hazel-eyed kids. This is one of the reasons I like the modifier gene explanation so much. It can help explain how green and blue-eyed parents might have hazel-eyed kids.
More information about Hazel Eyes
When eyes are hazel, they are brown mixed with amber and green. In some cases, there are shades of gray, blue, and gold within the iris too. Brown eyes may also have some green in them.
A curious adult from California asks: “Can two parents with blue eyes have a child with brown eyes?” Yes, blue-eyed parents can definitely have a child with brown eyes. Or green or hazel eyes for that matter.
If both the parents have brown eyes, then there is generally a 25% chance for their child to have blue eyes. Because both the brown-eyed parents have a recessive blue-eye gene and can pass it to the next generation. However, since eye color is polygenic, several other genes exert their effects as well.
The short answer is that brown-eyed parents can have kids with brown, blue or virtually any other color eyes.
There are two main types of hazel eyes: those with brown as the dominant color in the iris and those with green as the dominant color.
Hazel eyes are due to a combination of Rayleigh scattering and a moderate amount of melanin in the iris' anterior border layer. Hazel eyes often appear to shift in color from a brown to a green. Although hazel mostly consists of brown and green, the dominant color in the eye can either be brown/gold or green.
Green is considered by some to be the actual rarest eye color in the world, though others would say it's been dethroned by red, violet, and grey eyes. Green eyes don't possess a lot of melanin, which creates a Rayleigh scattering effect: Light gets reflected and scattered by the eyes instead of absorbed by pigment.
Much like gray eyes, hazel eyes may appear to “change color” from green to light brown to gold. Individuals whose eyes appear to be one color closest to the pupil, another color a little farther our, and another color around the edge of the iris are likely to have hazel eyes.
Only about 5 percent of the population worldwide has the hazel eye genetic mutation. After brown eyes, they have the most melanin. . The combination of having less melanin (as with green eyes) and a lot of melanin (like brown eyes) make this eye color unique.
People who had deep brown eyes during their youth and adulthood may experience a lightening of their eye pigment as they enter middle age, giving them hazel eyes.
In the first few years of life, more melanin may accumulate in the iris, causing blue eyes to turn green, hazel or brown. Babies whose eyes turn from blue to brown develop significant amounts of melanin. Those who end up with green eyes or hazel eyes develop a little less.
The allele for brown eyes is the most dominant allele and is always dominant over the other two alleles and the allele for green eyes is always dominant over the allele for blue eyes, which is always recessive.
Both parents with brown eyes: 75% chance of baby with brown eyes, 18.8% chance of baby with green eyes, 6.3% chance of baby with blue eyes.
Approximately 5% of the world's population and 18% of people in the U.S. have hazel eyes, which are a mixture of green, orange, and gold. Hazel eyes are more common in North Africa, the Middle East, and Brazil, as well as in people of Spanish heritage.
Hazel eyes have flecks of gold, green, and brown, so it's best to complement them with warm-toned blondes, browns, and reds if you really want your eye color to stand out. If your hazel eyes have a lot of green in them, rich red shades like auburn and copper will work best for you.
When broken down by gender, men ranked gray, blue, and green eyes as the most attractive, while women said they were most attracted to green, hazel, and gray eyes. Despite brown eyes ranking at the bottom of our perceived attraction scale, approximately 79% of the world's population sports melanin-rich brown eyes.
We found that green is the most popular lens colour, with brown coming in a close second, despite it being one of the most common eye colours. Although blue and hazel are seen as the most attractive eye colours for men and women they are surprisingly the least popular.
What about hazel eyes? Hazel eyes are hard to predict because it's typically a mixture of brown, green and amber shades. If both the parents have hazel eyes, there are 99% chances that the baby will also have hazel eyes. If both the parents have brown eyes, there is a 75% chance that their child will have brown eyes.
Hazel eyes are a mix of brown and green. Different factors can cause these colors to be more prominent, but your genes determine them.
Your children inherit their eye colors from you and your partner. It's a combination of mom and dad's eye colors – generally, the color is determined by this mix and whether the genes are dominant or recessive. Every child carries two copies of every gene – one comes from mom, and the other comes from dad.