Blonde facts for kids

Blonde children

A blonde person is someone with light coloured hair. It can be spelled either blonde or blond, according to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary. Some people are blonde because they have less pigment in their hair than dark haired people. To be blonde is usually to have blonde ancestors. Then it is genetic - blondes have genes that make them blond. Sometimes it is not genetic - this is called albinism. People can also use chemicals to make themselves blonde. Bleach is sometimes used to make the color of a person's hair lighter.

Most people are not blondes by their genes. Only some people, mostly with European ancestry, are blondes by their genes, and also some Australian Aborigines have a different gene that makes them blonde. Natural blondes are most common around the Baltic Sea, especially the Nordic countries such as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland and Ireland also has a number of natural blondes. According to recent genetic analysis, both mtDNA and Y chromosome exist in Austrians. There is also a large number of blondes in Baltic countries, Slavic countries (especially Poland), northwestern parts of Russia and among European descent that have lived in Kazakhstan since the Soviet Union. Natural blondes are also common in Canada, United States, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, United Kingdom, and Germany. Light hair can also brought on by environmental factors, especially exposure to sunlight.

Anthropologist Peter Frost's map of blonde hair. In the lightest yellow area, blonde hair is the most common (80 per cent or more of the native population). The darker the colour, the fewer blondes. In the darkest area, there are almost no native blondes.

Images for kids

A girl with light blonde hair
Emperor Pedro II of Brazil with blond hair, c. 1846
Blondes of different shades at WTMD's First Thursday series in Canton, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, in June 2014
A woman with long blonde hair
A young man with light blond hair
Toddler with golden blonde hair
A map published by Carleton S. Coon, attributed to Elmer Rising (1939):
Blond girl from Vanuatu
Uyghur girl in Turpan, Xinjiang, China
Actress Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). A natural brunette, she dyed her hair blonde early in her career
The Saturday Evening Post (1910). Fitzgerald was a frequent contributor in the 1920s.
The male figure of the Etruscan sarcophagus known as the Sarcophagus of the Spouses (Louvre, Paris), 520-510 BC
The goddess Hera (according to the description on the cup); tondo of an Attic white-ground kylix from Vulci, c. 470 BC
Terracotta vase in the shape of Dionysus' head, c. 410 BC; on display in the Ancient Agora Museum in Athens, housed in the Stoa of Attalus
Attic white-ground lekythos showing a scene of people mourning a recently deceased man, fount at Alopeke (Ambelokepoi) near Athens, c. 400 BC
Pottery vessel of Aphrodite in a shell; from Attica, Classical Greece, discovered at Phanagoria, Taman Peninsula (Bosporan Kingdom, southern Russia), early 4th century BC, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg
An ancient Greek pottery (terracotta) figurine from Taras (modern Taranto), Magna Graecia, Altes Museum
A red-figure pottery (terracotta) "kerch" style lekythos depicting a nymph and satyr playing a game of knucklebones, with two Eros figures (standing between Aphrodite) offering laurel wreaths of victory too the nymph and to a youth, c. 350 BC
Hades abducting Persephone, fresco in the small royal tomb at Vergina, Macedonia, Greece, c. 340 BC
A mosaic of the Kasta Tomb in Amphipolis depicting the abduction of Persephone by Pluto, 4th century BC
Central panel of the Abduction of Helen by Theseus, floor mosaic, detail of the charioteer, from the House of the Abduction of Helen, (c. 300 BC), ancient Pella
The god Dionysos riding a cheetah, mosaic from Pella, 330-300 BC
Detail of a Gnathia-style krater vase from either Apulia or Campania, 4th century BC, Museo archeologico nazionale (Florence)
A Gnathia-style vase from Apulia, 4th century BC, Museo archeologico nazionale (Florence)
A bottle (Lekythos) in Gnathia style - Eros, with a painting depicting a figure playing with a ball, third quarter of the 4th century BC
A lekythos bottle in the Gnathia style depicting the winged goddess of victory, Nike, armed and dancing
Gnathia ware, southern Italy (Magna Graecia), Apulian vase painting, 310-260 BC, Kinský Palace (Prague)
Apulian red-figure Oinochoe with Lid by the Ganymed Painter (Oinochoe) and Armidale Painter (Lid): head in a calyx between tendrils. About 340-310 BC. Antikensammlung Kiel.
A Gnathia-style ceramic vessel from ancient Magna Graecia (Apulia, Italy), depicting a blond winged youth with a Phrygian cap, with lion head spouts, by the "Toledo" painter, c. 300 BC
Woman's head on an alabastron in gnathia style; Apulian vase painting, Magna Graecia, Antikensammlung Kiel
Sitting woman holding a crown. Terracotta, Apulian vase painting, late 4th century BC. Museum Santa Maria della Scala, Siena.
An ancient Apulian Gnathia style "krater" vase from Magna Graecia showing a blond-haired woman playing with a ball.
A domestic floor mosaic depicting Athena, from the "Jewelery Quarter" of Delos, Greece, late 2nd or early 1st century BC
Fresco of young man, Villa di Arianna, Stabiae, 1st century AD.
Roman fresco from Pompeii showing a Maenad in silk dress, 1st century AD
Polyphemus hears of the arrival of Galatea; ancient Roman fresco painted in the "Fourth Style" of Pompeii (45–79 AD)
Ancient Roman fresco (detail) featuring Perseus and the head of Medusa, Stabiae, Italy, 1st century AD.
Fresco depicting a seated woman, from the Villa Arianna at Stabiae, 1st century AD
Fresco of a man holding a papyrus roll, Pompeii, Italy, 1st century AD
Heracles and Omphale, Pompeian Fourth Style (45–79 AD)
Heracles as a child, Pompeii, Pompeian Fourth Style (45–79 AD)
Roman fresco of a blond maiden reading a text, Pompeian Fourth Style (60-79 AD), Pompeii
Dye worker's shop of Veranius Hypsaeus, fresco from Pompeii, 1st century AD
A maenad holding a cupid, Pompeii, 1st century AD
Bacchus and followers battling sea creatures, mosaic from Tunisia, 2nd century AD
Ancient Roman bust of Antinous, made during the reign of Hadrian (117–138 AD), National Archaeological Museum in Athens.
Ancient bust of Roman emperor Lucius Verus (r. 161–169) in the Bardo National Museum, Tunis
Remnants of a Roman bust of a youth with a blond beard, perhaps depicting Roman emperor Commodus (r. 177–192), National Archaeological Museum, Athens
Polychrome marble statue depicting the goddess Tyche holding the infant Plutus in her arms, 2nd century AD, Istanbul Archaeological Museum
Ancient Roman statue of Isis, in the Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; first half of the 2nd century AD, found in Naples, Italy; made out of black and white marble.
Bust of Tiberius Julius Sauromates II (d. 210 AD), ruler of the Bosporan Kingdom in Roman Crimea, one of Rome's client states
Asclepius (center) arrives in Kos and is greeted by Hippocrates (left) and a citizen (right), mosaic, 2nd–3rd century AD
Wall fragment with fresco of a Gallo Roman man, from Evreux, 250–275 AD
A blond man in a Roman fresco from Klagenfurt, Austria, Landesmuseum für Kärnten
A mosaic from Tusculum depicting Athena, 3rd century AD
Roman mosaic depicting a feminine personification, from the Boathouse of Psyche in Daphne (suburb of Antioch), beginning of 3rd century AD, Louvre Museum
A boy holding a platter of fruits and what may be a bucket of crabs, in a kitchen with fish and squid, on the June panel from a mosaic depicting the months (3rd century)
A mosaic of young boys hunting from the Villa Romana del Casale, Roman Sicily, 4th century AD
A mosaic depicting a game hunt, from the Villa Romana del Casale, Roman Sicily, 4th century AD
A mosaic depicting a game hunt, from the Villa Romana del Casale, Roman Sicily, 4th century AD
A Roman fresco depicting the goddess Diana hunting, 4th century AD, from the Via Livenza hypogeum in Rome
Mosaic depicting Odysseus, from La Olmeda, Spain, late 4th–5th centuries AD
Mosaic of a princess of Skyros (detail from a larger scene of the Iliad showing Achilles and Odysseus) from the villa of La Olmeda, Spain, late 4th–5th centuries AD
Achilles being adored by princesses of Skyros, a scene from the Iliad where Odysseus (Ulysses) discovers him dressed as a woman and hiding among the princesses at the royal court of Skyros. A late Roman mosaic from La Olmeda, Spain, 4th–5th centuries AD
Color reconstruction of statue of a young girl from the Parthenon in Athens, 520 BC. Based on analysis of trace pigments.
East Frieze detail (6th-5th century BC) representing the battle of Troy, Achilles against Memnon; color reproduction of the Treasury of Siphnos - Delphi, Archaeological Museum of Delphi
Reconstructed polychromy of a vase-shaped tombstone from Athens, c. 330 BC, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen
The Greek goddess Artemis. Color reconstruction of a 1st-century AD statue found in Pompeii. Reconstructed using analysis of trace pigments. It was an imitation of Greek statues of the 6th century BC.
The Treu Head, 2nd century AD. Color reconstruction of marble head of likely a goddess. The head was found at the Esquiline Hill, Rome, and preserves numerous colour traces.