Redheaded Jill

When I little people would say I had red hair and my mom would tell me, “Fire engines are red, you are strawberry blonde.”

Last week I saw a video answering the age old question, why use the term “redhead” when the more accurate description would be “orange head”? I mean, Gilbert Blythe called Anne Shirley ‘Carrots’ not ‘Apples’. (Sadly I can’t remember who made the video, otherwise I’d share it and give them credit.)

After a quick bing search for an explanation I found a website called how to be a redhead.

So, why is it “redhead” instead of “orange head“?

“It all has to do with timing. The word “red” in English dates back to 5500 to 4500 BC. There weren’t many colors offered in the English language. After black and white, “red” was the next earliest color term created. “Orange”, on the other hand, only appears in English after the arrival of the fruits in England, around 1300 AD. said that the term “redhead” started in the mid-1200s, about a hundred years before English speakers were even talking about oranges, let alone the color. It’s said Orange-head wasn’t coined because English didn’t differentiate between “red” and “orange” at that point in time. “Redhead” stuck and has been present ever since. If you’re wondering why redheads weren’t instead called “Pumpkin heads” or “Carrot Heads”, that is because pumpkin doesn’t show up in the English language until the 1640’s.”

Fascinating, huh?

Thank you H2BAR Team for the info!