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?

If you accept that one of the late Diana, Princess of Wales’ ancestors was a woman half Armenian, half-Indian [from the India subcontinent] then Diana herself, Prince William and Prince Harry all have a bit of Indian ancestry and would technically make them people of colour.

If you accept that the wife of George III, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was descended from woman born in Moorish Spain then the entire royal family has tiny bit of non-European ancestry. 😃

People always assume I an German when we holiday in Europe. Waiters address me in German, German people speak to me in German.
I do have German Jewish ancestors a few generations back, but I'm probably 1/16th by lineage. Interestingly my Ancestry DNA puts me at 25% German so who knows how that works

Because the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, who were from modern day northern Germany and Denmark, started settling in England from around 400CE. It’s why English is a Germanic language not a Celtic one - the Celtic culture only remained in Wales, Cornwall and Scotland.

As a result many English people have Germanic traits (most noticeably blonde hair and blue eyes) that are less common in Celtic populations.

Subsequent invasions by the Vikings and Normans had much less effect as they were in much smaller numbers - except among the aristocracy where Norman genetic traits are still very common even today.

I've been mistaken for a German a few times, esp in the US, I'm British and blonde. I take it as a compliment

My father's English & German & I think looks more German

I don't think English in general look like Germans - I'm always surprised by white Americans looking like Germans though while white Australians definitely favour the British/Celtic

I want to be Scottish!

I wonder whether your Irish relations have a degree of washed-up Armada sailor ancestry? I have read that it’s thought to be possible in the west of Ireland.

I’ve often wondered the same about a dd, who has a skin colour quite unlike anyone else in the family - a sort of creamy olive that tans very easily, so more Mediterranean than Anglo. Two lots of GG parents came from southern U.K. coastal areas, so it’s a possibility.

But they are!

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER
Myself and 3 of my DC are tall, blonde, blue eyed, my other DC is often mistaken for having spanish heritage.
We are Scottish with my GPs coming from the Hebrides and Northern Ireland.
Most Islanders in our family are tall, blonde, farmers boys as we say.
There is reference in the past to Spanish Irish, as you mentioned the shipwrecked Armada, which could account for the olive skin/dark hair.

“Nobody is really from one country these days. Most people are mixed”
see the threads about first cousin marriage and gene pool size in some areas @Moonfasa100

My DH is frequently spoken to in German when we are abroad. It's happened to him since childhood, so there must be something in his appearance that German people think marks him out as German.

That myth about dark-haired, dark-complexioned Irish people being throwback descendants of Spanish Armada has never had any evidence base, though. The numbers who survived the shipwrecks, and weren’t killed if they made it to land, were tiny, nowhere near enough to leave a genetic trace in the population of Ireland.

The mixing is way older than that, though.

For what it's worth, a large proportion of white Americans have German ancestry. It's one of the largest ancestries in the USA.

I'm 5 ft 0 with some Irish ancestry, I get spoken to in Dutch in Amsterdam.

I don't think this is entirely true. I suspect after a certain point they intermingled in areas and married as happened now. Several Wessex kings have decidedly Celtic looking names. English have about 30% Anglo-Saxon DNA so a fair amount will be from Britons and Vikings as well. It would have been easier for them to try to live in peace with the Britons rather than constant warfare. Elmet is a British kingdom that lasted for a long time after the AS arrived.

this always trips me up. Lol
But yes they do apparently

I said that the culture (and hence the language) was pushed to the fringe, not the people themselves. The Anglo-Saxons did indeed inter-mingle with the Romano-Celtic population hence why Anglo-Saxon traits such as blonde hair/blue eyes are more common in England than they are in regions that the Anglo-Saxons did not colonise.

Can a brown Hindu be English? Most Britons say yes. Why do so many on the right say no? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/23/can-a-brown-hindu-be-english-most-britons-say-yes-why-do-so-many-on-the-right-say-no?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

I thought it was a well known fact English people are taller and fairer than Wales/Scotland/Ireland?

Huh?
Have you a source for that?

The name's origin is actually French. Its original spelling is J'Anus.

My family - not DP - are Irish/Scottish.

Jet black hair & hazel eyes or auburn & hazel eyes. Like both my daughters & granddaughter.

Most have olive'ish skin & tan easy.

I don’t think so. What subjective bullshit.

Shall we compare other nationalities?

Could you imagine the uproar …

I was wondering about that. I heard someone saying 'hasn't he got an Irish face?' and thought about it. I'd say maybe James Nesbitt has an 'Irish face'? 😂