The vast majority of people in the world have brown eyes. The second most common color is blue, but people can also have green, gray, amber, or red eyes. Some people have eyes that are different colors than each other.
The second-rarest eye color is hazel, a mixture of brown and green with golden flecks. About 18% of Americans have hazel eyes, compared with about 5% of the world's population.
Every blue-eyed person today is a distant descendant of this one, ancient human. About 27% of Americans have blue eyes, making it the third rarest eye color.
While there is a limitless number of hues, shades, richness, and combinations of colors, most people agree about how many eye colors there are in general. And that number is six: brown, hazel, blue, green, gray, and amber.
Brown is the most common eye color. Individuals with brown eyes have more melanin present, and over half of the people in the world have brown eyes. Gray eyes may be called “blue” at first glance, but they tend to have flecks of gold and brown.
"In Australians of European ancestry, the percentage of eye colours are 45 percent blue-grey, 30 percent green-hazel and 25 percent brown. If you're considering non-European ancestry it is the almost completely brown eye colour." But back to what peepers your bub might have.
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.
Although the traditional blue-eyed allele is rare in Asian populations, there are still a considerable number of people who have it.
Close to 3% of the world's population have gray eyes. People with gray eyes have little or no melanin in their irises, but they have more collagen in a part of the eye called the stroma. The light scatters off the collagen in a way that makes the eyes appear gray.
“Can two parents with blue eyes have a child with brown eyes?” Yes, blue-eyed parents can definitely have a child with brown eyes.
Purple eyes are also commonly referred to as “violet eyes,” as they are typically a light shade. For most people, this striking eye color can only be achieved with the help of colored contacts. But the fact is that a small (albeit very small) percentage of people are indeed born with purple eyes.
Changes in eye color are rare. Sometimes, the color of your eye may appear to change when your pupils dilate. The colors in your environment, including lighting and your clothes, can give the illusion of eye color change.
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.
Grey eyes are one of the rarest eye colors. Less than 3% of the global population has grey eyes. They're most commonly found in people of Northern and Eastern European ancestry.
Silver eye color is rare, although many consider silver eyes to be a variation of blue eye color. Like blue eyes, silver eyes are the result of a very low amount of pigmentation in the eye, which reflects a gray-silver appearance.
Are Purple Eyes Rare? True purple eyes are exceedingly rare. Less than 1% of the world's population has them, making them rarer than blue, hazel, amber, grey, or green.
Only 1% of people have pink and pale red eyes; they are typically albinos. Albinism happens when there is a problem with one of the genes inherited from the mother. Like red eyes, heterochromia is rare and effects less than 1% of the population.
In Asia, red hair can be found among some peoples of Afghan, Arab, Iranian, East Indians, Mongolian, Turkic, Miao, and Hmong descent.
The most common eye colors depend largely on geographic location. For example, Asians typically have brown eyes, while Europeans are more likely to have eyes of blue or other lighter hues.
Hazel eyes are usually a combination of brown, green, and gold, although they can appear to look like any of those colors at a distance. Hazel often means that the inside of an individual's iris is a different color than the outer rim, giving their eyes a bright, vibrant, multicolored appearance.
And what would you think is the most attractive eye color? In a website poll of over 66,000 respondents, 20% said green was the most attractive, followed by hazel and light blue at 16%. Brown was far and away voted the least attractive (6%).
Intelligence was the number one trait associated with brown, the most common eye color in the U.S., by 34 percent of respondents.