60 Fun Facts About Red Hair

Roughly what share of people of Northwestern European ancestry have red hair?

It is the rarest natural human hair colour and is far scarcer outside Europe.

Red hair is linked to a recessive allele on which chromosome?

The variant alters the MC1R protein; a person usually needs two copies to be red-haired.

Which pigment gives red hair its colour?

Red hair has far more of this reddish pigment than of the dark pigment eumelanin.

What type of inheritance describes red hair?

Two non-red-haired parents can both carry the gene and produce a redheaded child.

What percentage of redheads carry an MC1R variant in the RHC group?

Twin studies show MC1R variation is necessary but not sufficient; unidentified modifier genes are also involved.

Which country has the highest proportion of red-haired people in the world?

Around 13% are red-haired, followed by Ireland and Wales, though a study of 500,000 people put the figure at 5.3%.

Which city has the highest concentration of red-hair gene carriers in the world?

In the country's south-east about 40% of people carry red hair gene variants.

Which Volga people were called 'the most red-headed men in the world' in the 1700s?

The Volga region still has one of the highest percentages of redheads, and Izhevsk hosts an annual redhead festival.

What share of the Italian population has red hair?

The rate is the same across all regions; in Sardinia it falls to 0.24%.

The red-haired Tarim mummies of the 2nd millennium BC were found in which country?

They are linked to the ancient Tocharians, and Chinese sources also described the early Kyrgyz as red-haired.

Which Greek poet described the Thracians as blue-eyed and red-haired?

Classical authors said the same of the Budini and Sarmatians, though the idea that Sarmatians were named for their hair was debunked.

In Polynesian culture, reddish hair has traditionally been seen as a sign of what?

Auburn hair is especially common in some Polynesian tribes and family groups.

What Hebrew word, meaning ruddy, describes both Esau and David in the Masoretic text?

Josephus preferred to call David golden-haired and reserved red hair for the less flattering figure of Esau.

Which Norse god is usually described as having a reddish beard?

In ancient Egypt red hair was linked to the god Set, and also to the pharaoh Ramesses II.

Red hair was associated with which ancient Egyptian deity?

The occultist Montague Summers claimed red-haired men were once sacrificed at the grave of Osiris as representatives of his rival.

Since when has the term 'redhead' been in use?

The word ginger, used especially in Britain and Ireland, is roughly the colour of dried, powdered ginger root.

Why do redheads tend to freckle and burn rather than tan?

The upside is that pale skin makes enough vitamin D in low light; the downside is a higher risk of skin cancer under strong sun.

Where does red hair typically sit on the Fitzpatrick skin scale?

That is the palest, most sun-sensitive category, though red hair also occurs in darker-skinned people.

Researchers have found that people with red hair need more of what?

One study found the local anaesthetic lidocaine significantly less effective in red-haired women.

The mutated redhead receptor responds abnormally to what?

MSH normally tells melanocytes to make black eumelanin; with a faulty receptor they make the reddish pigment instead.

Which painkiller worked better on women with red-hair gene variants in one study?

A follow-up found redheads of both sexes responded more strongly to morphine-6-glucuronide, though a later study saw no recovery difference.

Did Neanderthals carry the same red-hair gene variant as people today?

A genome study concluded that any red-hair variants Neanderthals had were probably not at high frequency.

Roughly how long ago is the modern red-hair gene variant estimated to have arisen?

Red hair probably spread through genetic drift in northern Europe, where pale skin was not selected against.

A 2007 report that redheads would soon die out was traced to a foundation funded by whom?

The 'Oxford Hair Foundation' was funded by Procter & Gamble; experts dismissed the research as bogus.

Severe protein deficiency can turn dark hair red as part of which syndrome?

It is a sign of critical starvation and is common during famines.

Which English monarch was a redhead, making the colour fashionable for women of her era?

Centuries later, celebrities such as Nicole Kidman and Emma Stone can still boost sales of red hair dye.

The hair colour 'Titian' is named after a painter from which city?

The Venetian master often painted red-haired women; the Pre-Raphaelites, Modigliani and Gustav Klimt shared the fascination.

Which Sherlock Holmes story involves a mysterious society for red-haired men?

Conan Doyle published it in 1891.

Which 1943 Technicolor film paired the redheads Lucille Ball and Red Skelton?

Comic-book redheads include Jean Grey, Red Sonja, Mystique and Poison Ivy.

In Anne of Green Gables, what is said to match Anne Shirley's hair?

Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye notes that redheads are supposed to get mad easily, but his brother Allie never did.

Which Shakespeare character was traditionally played in a red wig?

Red hair was a conventional marker of Jewish villainy on the English stage; Dickens gave Fagin 'matted red hair'.

Which biblical figure was commonly depicted with red hair in medieval European art?

During the Spanish Inquisition, people with red hair were identified as Jewish and singled out for persecution.

According to Montague Summers, red hair and green eyes were medieval signs of what?

The medieval writer Theophilus Presbyter also claimed a red-haired youth's blood was needed to turn copper into gold.

Who wrote that red-haired people 'of both sexes are more libidinous and mischievous'?

The line comes from the voyage to the Houyhnhnms in Gulliver's Travels.

Criminologist Cesare Lombroso claimed what share of 'criminal women' were redheads?

He and Guglielmo Ferrero linked red hair to crimes of lust, giving old prejudices a veneer of 19th-century science.

What does the Irish-derived name Rory mean?

It comes from ruadh, red-haired or rusty, and rígh, king, though not all Rorys are redheads.

In Australian slang, redheads are traditionally nicknamed what?

More recently Australians have used the word 'ranga', which has its own animal origin.

The Australian slang term 'ranga' for a redhead derives from which animal?

The word 'rufus', a variant of rufous, has also been used in Australian and British slang.

The Hokkien term 'ang mo', literally red-haired, is used in Singapore to describe whom?

A fort in Tamsui, Taiwan, is nicknamed the Red-hair Fort in Taiwanese Hokkien.

Which British politician was called a 'ginger rodent' by Harriet Harman in 2010?

The Treasury minister replied that he was proud to be ginger, and Harman apologised.

Which sperm bank announced in 2011 that it would stop accepting red-haired donors?

The reason given was low demand from women seeking artificial insemination.

Which supermarket withdrew a card reading 'Santa loves all kids. Even ginger ones'?

Customers complained the 2009 card was offensive.

Which show tackled prejudice against redheads in its 'Ginger Kids' episode?

The show returned to the theme in 'Le Petit Tourette', 'It's a Jersey Thing' and 'Fatbeard'.

Which comedian played Sandra Kemp, who seeks refuge in a shelter for ginger people?

Tate is a redhead herself; Tim Minchin, also red-haired, covered the topic in his song 'Prejudice'.

In which country is the international Redhead Day festival held?

It began in 2005 when the painter Bart Rouwenhorst advertised for 15 red-haired models and 150 turned up.

To which city did Redhead Day move in 2019 after years in Breda?

The three-day festival draws tens of thousands of visitors from more than 80 countries every August.

What was painter Bart Rouwenhorst trying to do when he accidentally founded Redhead Day?

Inspired by Rossetti and Klimt, he chose 14 models, held a lottery for the 15th and photographed the rest as a group.

The Irish Redhead Convention, held in County Cork, includes which competition?

It also crowns a ginger King and Queen and judges the most freckles per square inch.

The first US festival for redheads, launched in 2015, is held in which state?

Redhead Days takes place in Highwood; Israel's redhead gathering is held at a kibbutz named Gezer, meaning carrot.

MC1R Magazine, a publication for redheads worldwide, is based in which city?

It takes its name from the gene responsible for most red hair.

A rare albinism causing red hair and reddish skin is sometimes seen in which populations?

Type 3, or rufous, albinism is one of the few pathological causes of red hair.

Roughly what percentage of people in Scotland, the world leader per capita, have red hair?

Ireland and Wales follow; in south-east Scotland about 40% of people carry a red-hair gene variant.

Which Botticelli painting famously depicts its mythological goddess as a redhead?

Titian, the Pre-Raphaelites, Modigliani and Klimt also returned again and again to red-haired subjects.

In The Catcher in the Rye, which red-haired relative does Holden say never got angry despite the stereotype?

Holden notes that redheads are supposed to get mad easily, but his late brother never did.

In the Indian medical tradition of Ayurveda, redheads are considered most likely to have which temperament?

Early Western medicine likewise filed red hair under the 'sanguine' temperament.

Israel's annual red-hair gathering, held since 2014, takes place at a kibbutz whose name means what?

Attendance at Kibbutz Gezer has had to be capped because of the risk of rocket attacks.

Which Russian city, capital of Udmurtia, has held a redhead festival every year since 2004?

The Volga region's Udmurts were called 'the most red-headed men in the world' by 18th-century ethnographers.

Red-hair and blue-eye genetics were found in Chalcolithic remains from the Areni-1 cave in which country?

The remains date to roughly 4300-3500 BCE, the same cave complex that yielded the world's oldest known leather shoe.

Which North African Berber groups are noted for a comparatively high frequency of red hair?

The Riffians live in Morocco and the Kabyles in northern Algeria.

A 1903 study found what share of Polish Jews had red hair?

Before the 20th century red hair was widely stereotyped as a Jewish trait in Europe, and the Spanish Inquisition used it to single people out.