Johnny Depp

by ethnic


Birth Name: John Christopher Depp II

Birth Place: Owensboro, Kentucky, USA

Date of Birth: June 9, 1963

Ethnicity: German, English, Irish, French, African and Cherokee

Depp is the star of the films, Pirates of the Caribbean, Public Enemies and Edward Scissor Hands. In an interview he stated that his great grandmother has a lot of Cherokee heritage. (3)

From an interview in 2002 he stated that he was a mixture of German, Irish and Cherokee among other things.(2) There are some rumors on the internet that Depp also has Lebanese heritage, though this is not confirmed.

Some of Depp’s biographies state that his family name Depp is of French origin, derived from the names Pierre Deppe or Dieppe. He jokingly says that his surname means “idiot” in German.

The link below (1) shows a family tree on Depp’s father’s side that leads right up to his grandfather Oren Laramore Depp.  If you go back 9 generations on this family tree it will lead to a woman named Martha, born in 1612, who was a woman of African descent.

An interesting piece of trivia is that Martha’s daughter, Elizabeth Key was the first woman of African ancestry to successfully take legal action to free herself from slavery. This happened in 1656. (4)

Source:

  1. http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/
  2. http://johnnydepp-zone.com/deppster/
  3. http://www.johnnydeppfan.com/interviews/ias.htm
  4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Key_Grinstead

Photo by PR Photos

{ 416 comments… read them below or add one }

proof April 19, 2010 at 3:57 am

thats explain why he have that exotic look to him he like mixed with so much thats nice i love mixed people

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Fuzzybear March 30, 2010 at 1:13 pm

To Tribe

I doubt white people will ever jump on that band wagon

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Tribe March 30, 2010 at 6:58 am

Either way, where jonny goes everyone follows, maybe this will start a new trend of claiming African ancesty instead of Native American.

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Fuzzybear March 17, 2010 at 2:39 pm

To the truth

You said (white-hating slave mentality),which is funny,because I never been a slave.And after reading what you wrote,I didn’t hate you,so where is the truth?Now it was your kind,that came up with that rule,and now your mad.Were not trying to turn people like him into anything,that’s your own insecurity.

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drexxx March 17, 2010 at 7:48 am

Ok but in your comments you seem to target the whole black people, you can’t generalize. personally i’m black, don’t believe in the one drop black, and i don’t hate white people so when you said black people are the prejudiced race, it’s not the truth !!!!!
Do you realize that your comment could offend a lot of black people who are not ignorant and stupid like you seem to think ???

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thetruth March 17, 2010 at 7:38 am

many people on this site have said one drop of black blood and you are black and many other ignorant things so no i am NOT misinformed they have also said many other ignorant things like angelina has to be black because she has full lips and they are the ignorant ones not me and there have also been very hateful comments towards white people and i am just pointing them out

so what i said is the truth

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ethnic March 17, 2010 at 1:52 am

Hi Kitty. long time no see. answering your question I just said he has very distant African heritage but I didnt say no one considers him part black. I couldnt say that about anyone because it would be denying someones heritage. I think if you are proud of a certain ancestry you have no matter how distant it is, you have the right to be proud of it.

Admin

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HelloKitty March 16, 2010 at 7:19 pm

Ethnic, I have a question for you. You stated that his Black heritage was 9 generations back and so basically no one considers him part black. But what about black ppl who claim to be JUST black and are in the same boat as Johnny? On Ciara, Keri Hilson, Beyonce, Chris Brown and many other celeb pages people argue that, even if they have an ancestor from way back, they are mixed and just denying it(mainly because of their complexions). There seems to be a bias. This seems foolish to me because it doesn’t seem likely that all light-skin, non-mixed blacks are reaching back and picking up white traits from several generations ago.

BTW…my definition of mixed is a person with parents of different races completely. Like a white parent and a black parent or hispanic, asian, etc..

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drexxx March 15, 2010 at 9:56 pm

loool you’re so funny fuzzybear
in paris it’s 2h00 PM so it’s good afrternoon for me, and it may be the same for tshegotfatso in south africa, but i’m not sure lol

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Fuzzybear March 15, 2010 at 9:42 pm

Good night ladies or day,which ever it may be for you

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