Why do English people look German?

[sarahlayton06]

Why do some white English people (especially women not so much men) look so extremely German? Not French or Italian or Spanish but German.

This is not so much the case with Welsh or Irish or Scottish people.

For example, don’t you think Samantha Womack (who plays Ronnie Mitchell in Eastenders) looks extremely German?

Are you seriously asking why some white British people look Germanic? Of course they do. Some white British people look a bit French or Scandinavian or Eastern European.

Such a weird comment. White people look like other white peoples is hardly some news flash

Yes there is a 'look' that's I find hard to define. I'm Irish and if I walk the street in a foreign country they are easily spotted and different from English or other white European. There are exceptions of course, I have a friend who looks Italian for no reason.

I agree. I hate the white = bad narrative. As you say we can all agree slavery was fucked up and disgusting but it also was not just the British empire partaking in this. I'm sick of being made to feel bad for something our ancestors did hundreds of years ago. I do not think it was okay and it's something that should never be repeated but I refuse to take the blame for it.

Maybe not to other Germans. I get mistaken for a German by non Germans, particularly in Spain.

This thread is a bit odd to me! Population mixing in Europe goes back a long time so you can't pick out modern nationalities so distinctly. Of course you can show trends, southern Europe/Mediterranean being different from Northern, and some specific things are more concentrated like hair colour (red hair really is most common amongst Celts). I do think clothing, mannerisms, etc are very key to how we peg people. Americans can be anything in terms of colouring but they're easy to spot when elsewhere, even if they're not just walking stereotypes.

I have a friend, same ancestry as mine, Ashkenazi Jewish. I'm immediately pegged as either Jewish or southern European. People can't tell with her; she's very fair skinned with freckles and thick curly brown hair. Sometimes they guess Irish, sometimes English. Her sisters, however, are much darker and if you saw them all together you'd be hard put to guess unless you know a lot of Jews.

I can with some people. Deep set eyes, a mouth that turns down 'at rest'.

Easier still if they have pale skin and dark hair.

Just remembered to add...cheekbones! I've got the same face shape as my great grandma, born in Nova Scotia to Irish immigrants. My daughters have my bone structure as well as my colouring.

My mouth turns down at rest, I also have deep set eyes. My mum and my nan had dark hair and dark brown eyes (like mine)

i have no Irish ancestry whatsoever according to my dna testing and recent paper trail research .

my mum, my Nan and her family all have this look, we are all from Sussex and we go back hundreds of years to the same bloody area.

my dd is olive skinned, dark hair and eyes with flat cheekbones and almond shaped eyes which are like mine. She has been called p*ki and chink in school. She is not mixed race, her dad isn’t either.!

people who say oh I can tell that someone is blah blah no you really can't!

I do think you can identify people by dress sense/mannerisms more than what they look like. I'm of Greek descent and when I have a tan I look very similar to Spaniards/Turks etc but still think I look very British in my dress and mannerisms etc. you can usually spot British tourists of all ethnicities/colouring etc a mile off when you're on holiday.

That's interesting. I'm from the north of Scotland, we were part of Norway until the 15th century and the only place I've ever been where I've been assumed to be local was Sweden and the Swedish woman looks the most 'familiar' of those faces.

I do wonder about the selection of the source photos, obviously these generic faces all look quite young but also e.g. I think the English faces look quite southern, I live in the NE and people round here look more Scottish than that kind of southern English. That probably translates to other countries as well, there will be bias in the selection (e.g. there is a 'white American' and 'black American' but not a 'Hispanic American' despite them being a significant proportion of the country).

I don’t think English people like German. I think English people look quite varied! We live in France and I sometimes think french women often have similar physical characteristics. English women all quite diverse I think!

Janus is her maiden name.

I am white and English. When I went on holiday to Germany, every German person I interacted with assumed I was German. Audio tours automatically handed me the German version, people spoke to me in German, even children spoke to me in German. I know about 10 German words in total. But I must look German.

Take up a hobby like history OP.

Can teach you a lot.

Samantha Womack's father's original surname was Janes, not Janus.

Fwiw, I think some English people look Friesian or Dutch. But I think there's a distinctly English look. I don't think many look German (there's a wide variety of German looks too).

Such a weird observation. Some English people look like some German people. Yep. Some English people look like some French people. Also yep. And Eastern European and Irish and Scandinavian

Yes, please !

Gosh, I wish. I think we are a bit lumpen as a people 😁

I'm brown, born in London and I'm English. Or does English mean you have to white.

Why is it if you're Scottish, you can be brown but not English?
Why is it that on the census, you can be Scottish Asian but not English Asian

Well I’ve never met your friend but Samantha’s is definitely coloured, so not her natural shade.

I’ve been mistaken for being German when I’ve been abroad, I would assume it’s because we’re Northern European and have a roughly similar climate, whereas French and Spanish are southern European and have a warmer climate and Scandinavians have a much colder climate.

Guess the OP doesn't know about the royal family

@orangeblosssom
Scotland census is separate from England and we tend to be more inclusive.

At 5’5” I feel like a midget in Germany. Or certainly did when I went on a school exchange! I don’t agree with your observation.