๐ How Rare Are You in Portugal?
๐ต๐น Genetic Landscape of Portugal
Portugal's genetics reflect its unique position as the westernmost point of mainland Europe. Celtic, Roman, Visigothic, and Moorish invasions left layered genetic signatures. The Moors (711-1249 AD) left subtle North African genetic traces especially in the southern Algarve and Alentejo regions. Portugal's Age of Exploration also introduced small amounts of Sub-Saharan African, South Asian, and East Asian DNA through trade and colonization. Northern Portugal shows more Celtic/Germanic traits, while the south is more Mediterranean.
Two Atlantic archipelagos belong to this story as much as the mainland does. Madeira and the Azores had no inhabitants at all when Portuguese ships reached them in the fifteenth century, and each island began with a small founding group โ mainlanders from the Algarve and the Minho, plus Flemish colonists on Faial and Pico โ the kind of beginning that leaves a narrow stock of family names behind. Back on the continent, emigration did the opposite work, carrying Portuguese households to Brazil, France, Venezuela, southern Africa, Ontario and the mill towns of New England. Whole parishes in the interior emptied toward France in the 1960s, and their villages still fill up again every August when the emigrants and their children drive home.
๐๏ธ What Portugal Has Counted Since 1864
Portugalโs first general population census was taken on 1 January 1864. It counted 4,188,410 habitantes de facto, an average of 4.1 people per family, with results broken out by district, municipality and parish. What the form collected was sex, age, marital status โ single, married, widowed โ the absent population, people in transit, and households. Profession and nationality were on it too, but were filled in so poorly that they were not analysed. Not one physical characteristic appears among them.
That is why this page is built out of two different kinds of number. How many people live in Portugal is a count somebody actually made, and the Instituto Nacional de Estatรญstica has gone on making it. Eye colour, hair colour and blood group are not on that list, and the tables below are not a headcount either โ they are estimates borrowed from studies and samples. Worth knowing before you read them.
๐๏ธ Eye Color
| Brown | 55% |
| Hazel | 12% |
| Green | 13% |
| Blue | 12% |
| Gray | 8% |
๐ Hair Color
| Dark Brown | 35% |
| Brown | 25% |
| Black | 20% |
| Blonde | 10% |
| Red | 2% |
| Gray | 8% |
๐ฉธ Blood Type
| O+ | 36% |
| A+ | 32% |
| B+ | 9% |
| AB+ | 3% |
| O- | 7% |
| A- | 8% |
| B- | 3% |
| AB- | 2% |
Trait frequencies on this page come from public and institutional datasets โ see Data Sources.
🧮 Calculate Your Rarity in Portugal
Pick your eye colour, hair colour and blood type. The calculator uses Portugal's own figures from the tables above, not world averages.
This is an estimate, not a measurement. It multiplies three national frequencies as if they were independent, and they are not: eye and hair colour share pigmentation genes, so a combination that tends to run together, such as blue eyes with blonde hair, is more common than the multiplication suggests, while one that rarely does, such as blue eyes with black hair, is rarer. Blood type is independent of both. The frequencies are national averages from public datasets — see Data Sources.
That number describes the body you were born with. Fraeon, our other site, does the same arithmetic for the part you chose: the films, series, games, books, anime and manga you have actually finished. Start your log →
๐ The State Keeps a List of First Names
To register a baby in Portugal the given name must be a Portuguese name already in the Civil Registryโs own name database โ the rules come from the Instituto dos Registos e do Notariado. The first given name may not raise doubts as to sex, and it may not repeat the given names of a sibling, unless that sibling has died. A foreign given name in its original form is allowed only if the child was born abroad, has another nationality, or has a parent who is foreign or holds another nationality.
If you are unsure, you can ask the state first: a request for clarification on the composition of a name goes under article 103, number 4 of the Cรณdigo do Registo Civil, through the registry office chosen for the birth. For a site that asks how rare your name is, the unusual part is that the pool of given names you can pick from is written down in advance.
โ๏ธ Six Words, Four Surnames, No Fixed Order
A Portuguese legal name holds at most six words โ in the ordinary case up to two given names and four surnames. The linking words de, da, do and e do not count towards the six, and a hyphenated compound such as Castelo-Branco or Mil-Homens counts as one word rather than two. The surnames are normally drawn from both parents, but they may come from one parent only, or from grandparents and great-grandparents; if they are not among the parentsโ own surnames, you have to prove the line.
Then the part that catches people out. The order of the surnames follows no rule โ the registry states that flatly. Two children of the same couple can carry the same four surnames arranged differently, and both are correct. So a Portuguese surname string cannot be run backwards to work out which parent contributed what, and two people carrying the same surnames in a different sequence are not necessarily related at all.
โญ Rare Facts About Portugal
Where these numbers come from
Population: Instituto Nacional de Estatรญstica (INE), which runs the census, a series INE dates to the first general census of 1864. Madeira publishes its own figures through the Direรงรฃo Regional de Estatรญstica da Madeira. Name and registry rules: Instituto dos Registos e do Notariado. Eye colour, hair colour and blood type are a different kind of number: they do not come from INE or from any registry, so those rows are estimates from non-official datasets, not a national count. See Data Sources. Checked September 2026.