101 Fun Facts About Twins

Which term describes identical twins, as opposed to fraternal ones?

Monozygotic twins grow from a single fertilized egg that splits in two, which is why identical twins share nearly all their DNA and are almost always the same sex.

Worldwide, roughly one delivery in how many produces twins?

About 1 in 90: a 2021 global study put twinning at 12 per 1,000 deliveries, while identical twins are rarer at roughly 3 to 4 per 1,000.

What do Yoruba parents traditionally commission when a twin dies?

A wooden figure called an ere ibeji is carved to stand in for the dead twin, and the parents dress it and care for it as if it were a living child.

A 2011 study of developing countries found the highest national twinning rate, 27.9 per 1,000 births, in which country?

Benin topped the 2011 Smits and Monden survey at 27.9 twin births per 1,000; the study showed high twinning was no single country's quirk but ran across most of Central Africa, with far lower rates in Asia and Latin America.

Igbo-Ora, nicknamed the 'Twin Capital of the World,' is a town in which country?

Igbo-Ora sits in Nigeria's Oyo State; locals credit the local diet, though researchers have found no proven cause for its twinning rate.

In Yoruba tradition, if the first-born twin is Taiwo, what is the second-born called?

Kehinde, 'the one who came last', is considered the elder, having sent Taiwo out first to check whether the world was fit to enter.

Which Nazi fugitive did one author blame for the twins of Brazil's Cândido Godói?

Josef Mengele hid in South America after the war, and an author's book tied the town's twins to experiments he supposedly ran there; researchers instead pointed to a founder effect among its few settler families.

Which of these differs even between identical twins, who share almost all their DNA?

Fingerprints differ because the ridges are shaped not only by genes but by each baby's own contact with the womb, so even identical twins end up with prints nobody else has.

Fraternal twins run in families because some women inherit a tendency to do what?

Release more than one egg per cycle: this tendency, called hyperovulation, is partly inherited, so fraternal twins cluster in families, while most identical twins are not explained by genes at all.

Fraternal twins with two different biological fathers are the result of a phenomenon with what name?

Heteropaternal superfecundation turned up in 2.4 percent of fraternal twins in one study, but every pair came from a paternity suit, so its authors warned against applying that rate to twins in general.

Roughly how long is the longest reported gap between twin births?

Three months: twins in Cologne were reported born 97 days apart in 2018 and 2019; after a very early first birth, doctors sometimes delay the second to give that baby more time in the womb.

A private language developed by twins that only the two of them understand is called what?

Cryptophasia was made famous by Grace and Virginia Kennedy, American twins born in 1970 who called each other Poto and Cabengo and went on speaking their own invented language well into childhood.

Conjoined twins are most often joined at which part of the body?

The chest is the most common join, ahead of the abdomen, pelvis and head, and twins joined there often share a single heart.

As of 2019, how many cases of semi-identical 'sesquizygotic' twins had been documented?

Only two: in the second case an early scan pointed to identical twins, yet later ones showed a boy and a girl, who turned out to share all of their mother's DNA but only part of their father's.

Chang and Eng Bunker, the original 'Siamese twins', were born in Siam, now called what?

Thailand first replaced Siam as the country's name in 1939; the brothers left Siam in 1829, toured as 'the Siamese Twins', then settled as farmers in North Carolina, where they married two sisters and had more than twenty children.

According to legend, the twin founders of Rome were suckled as infants by which animal?

A she-wolf suckled Romulus and Remus after they were set adrift on the Tiber; a shepherd, Faustulus, then raised them, and in most tellings Romulus killed Remus as they quarrelled over their new city.

Which pair of mythological twins was placed in the sky as the constellation Gemini?

In the usual version only Pollux, son of Zeus, was immortal; when mortal Castor died, Pollux chose to share his immortality, and Castor and Pollux were set among the stars together.

Who was the famous sister of the Gemini twins of Greek myth?

Helen of Troy was, in the usual telling, Leda's daughter like the twins; long before the Trojan War, when Theseus carried the young Helen off, her brothers invaded Attica and brought her home.

Gemini, the zodiac sign of the twins, is ruled by which planet?

Mercury rules Gemini, the third sign of the zodiac; NASA borrowed the twins' name for its 1960s Gemini capsules because each one carried a crew of two.

In the Book of Genesis, the twin Esau sold his birthright to his brother Jacob in exchange for what?

A bowl of stew, the red lentil 'mess of pottage', bought the birthright; Jacob later dressed in Esau's clothes to claim their blind father Isaac's blessing as well.

What name was given to Elvis Presley's stillborn twin brother?

Jesse Garon was stillborn, leaving Elvis to grow up an only child in a two-room house in Tupelo, Mississippi; his own middle name was first spelled Aron, a near match for his twin's.

Which actor played both Kray twins in the 2015 film Legend?

Tom Hardy played both Ronnie and Reggie Kray, East End gangsters who became 1960s celebrities, photographed by David Bailey and interviewed on television, before both were jailed for life in 1969.

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen got their start sharing the role of Michelle Tanner on which sitcom?

Full House ran from 1987 to 1995; despite looking alike, the Olsens are fraternal twins, and they founded the luxury fashion label The Row in 2006.

What was the 1990s sitcom starring Tia and Tamera Mowry as twins separated at birth?

Sister, Sister was cancelled by ABC after two seasons and picked up by The WB for four more; both sisters were born in Gelnhausen, West Germany.

In which sport did the Winklevoss twins compete for the US at the 2008 Beijing Olympics?

Rowing: they finished sixth in the men's coxless pair; Armie Hammer played both brothers in The Social Network, and they later founded the crypto exchange Gemini.

In which 1999 Adam Sandler comedy did twins Dylan and Cole Sprouse share the role of a five-year-old?

Big Daddy cast the Arezzo-born brothers as Julian; Cole later played Jughead Jones on Riverdale while Dylan opened a meadery in Brooklyn.

Twins James and Oliver Phelps played which prankster brothers in the Harry Potter films?

Fred and George Weasley went to twins with no acting experience, who skipped school for an open audition in Leeds; James played Fred, and Oliver, the elder by 13 minutes, played George.

Which actress has a twin brother named Hunter?

Scarlett Johansson took her first leading role in 1996's Manny & Lo, and her fraternal twin Hunter appeared in it too; their older sister Vanessa also became an actress.

Which Oscar-winning actor has an identical twin brother who is four minutes younger?

Rami Malek's twin is named Sami; after graduating in 2003, Rami spent years in small television roles before Mr. Robot made his name and Bohemian Rhapsody won him the Oscar.

Which US president is the father of twin daughters Jenna and Barbara?

George W. Bush's twins were born in 1981; Barbara, the elder, was named for their father's mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, while Jenna was named for their mother's mother, Jenna Welch.

Jose Canseco hit 462 big-league home runs; how many did his twin brother Ozzie hit?

Zero: Ozzie played just 24 MLB games without a homer, though he smashed 48 in one Atlantic League season for the Newark Bears in 2000.

Identical twins Daniel and Henrik Sedin spent their entire NHL careers with which team?

The Vancouver Canucks' general manager, Brian Burke, worked a chain of trades at the 1999 draft to hold both the second and third picks, then used them on Daniel and Henrik, who retired together in 2018.

Tiki Barber's twin Ronde won a Super Bowl as a cornerback for which team?

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers kept Ronde for all 16 of his seasons; his 92-yard interception return sealed the NFC title game against the Eagles on the way to their Super Bowl XXXVII win.

In the 1988 comedy Twins, what made Schwarzenegger's and DeVito's characters twins?

A secret genetic experiment produced them; the two stars and director Ivan Reitman gave up their salaries for a share of the profits, and the film went on to gross $216 million worldwide.

Lindsay Lohan made her film debut playing both twins in the 1998 remake of which Disney film?

The Parent Trap comes from Erich Kästner's German novel Das doppelte Lottchen; to put Lohan on screen twice, the crew used motion-control cameras and a double, Erin Mackey, for shots of both twins together.

Identical twins Lisa and Louise Burns played the ghostly Grady sisters in which horror film?

The Shining describes the Grady girls as 'about eight and ten', so the script's sisters are not twins at all; casting real twins is what fixed them in memory as 'the Grady twins'.

Twinsburg, Ohio, home of the Twins Days festival, was named after what?

Twin brothers Moses and Aaron Wilcox offered six acres for a town square and $20 towards a school if Millsville would rename itself Twinsburg; the festival followed in 1976.

Minnesota's 'Twin Cities' are Minneapolis and which neighbor to its east?

Saint Paul is the state capital and Minneapolis the bigger city; when big-league baseball arrived in 1961, the team took the state's name and called itself the Twins after both cities, so as to favour neither.

Which coincidence did the 'Jim twins', raised apart and reunited at 39, really share?

Both married women named Linda, then Betty; each also had a dog named Toy and a first son named James Alan or Allan, coincidences that led psychologist Thomas Bouchard to study the pair.

Scott Kelly's identical twin, his Earth control in NASA's Twins Study, became a US senator for which state?

Mark Kelly, an astronaut himself, stayed on the ground while Scott spent nearly a year on the space station, so scientists could compare the two bodies afterwards; Mark won his Arizona Senate seat in 2020.

What do the names of Kin Narita and Gin Kanie, Japan's celebrity centenarian twins, mean?

Gold and Silver are what Kin and Gin mean; the sisters were unknown until around their 100th birthday, when Nagoya's mayor and the governor congratulated them and Japan made them celebrities; Kin lived to 107 and Gin to 108.

The 18th-century peasant woman credited with a record 69 children, all twins, triplets or quadruplets, lived in which country?

Russia: the wife of Feodor Vassilyev, a peasant from Shuya, is said to have had 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four of quadruplets in 27 births, a tally a monastery reported to Moscow in 1782.

Conjoined twins Abby and Brittany Hensel went on to work in which profession?

Teaching: the twins, who each control one side of their shared body, earned two teaching licences but expected a single salary because, as Abby put it, they do the job of one person.

The CDC ties about a third of the 1980–2009 US twin boom to what?

Later motherhood explains about a third of the 76 percent rise, the CDC found, because women in their thirties conceive twins naturally more often than younger women do.

Which staple food do some researchers suspect of raising the Yoruba's high twinning rate?

Yam is the usual suspect, and people in one twin-rich town also credit okra-leaf stew, but doctors point out that the same yams are eaten elsewhere without the same result.

A 2006 study found vegans, unlike vegetarians, were one-fifth as likely to have twins and pointed to which foods?

Dairy products carry insulin-like growth factor, which Gary Steinman suggested makes the ovaries more responsive; he also wondered whether growth hormone given to cattle had helped push twin rates up.

Twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome can only affect twins that share what?

Sharing a placenta is the precondition: vessel connections across it let one twin pump blood to the other, and laser ablation of those vessels is the main treatment.

What was Lydia Fairchild, whom DNA tests wrongly said was not her children's mother?

A chimera. Her children carried the DNA of a twin she had absorbed in the womb; even a baby whose birth a court officer witnessed failed to match her blood sample.

Which animal routinely gives birth to identical quadruplets from a single egg?

The armadillo. A nine-banded armadillo's single fertilized egg waits months before implanting, so the young arrive in spring, and then it splits into four identical pups.

The first DNA-confirmed identical twins in dogs were born by C-section to which breed?

Irish Wolfhound. Delivering the litter in South Africa, vet Kurt de Cramer was struck by how alike a pair of the pups looked and called in scientists, whose DNA tests confirmed they were identical.

Doctors closely monitor monoamniotic twins, who share a single sac, for which hazard?

Their cords tangling together. With no membrane between them, the twins' umbilical cords can wind around each other or be squeezed shut, and guidelines advise delivering such twins early by caesarean.

Which apostle's name, now a common boy's name, comes from the Aramaic word for 'twin'?

Thomas means 'twin', and John's gospel adds his Greek nickname Didymus, which means the same thing, so the doubting disciple is in effect called Twin twice.

Which men's tennis champion is the father of two sets of twins, girls born in 2009 and boys in 2014?

Roger Federer and his wife Mirka, a former tour player, had identical girls first and fraternal boys five years later; his sister Diana is the mother of twins too.

Which That '70s Show actor has a fraternal twin brother, Michael, who had a heart transplant as a boy?

Ashton Kutcher's twin Michael, who also has cerebral palsy, went on to become a spokesperson for a disability advocacy organization.

When identical twins have children with another identical pair, the cousins are genetically as close as what?

Full siblings is how these double cousins test, since each pair of identical parents carries the same DNA; the children of a single twin pair test as half-siblings instead.

Which bear has twins in about half of pregnancies, though the mother usually raises only the stronger cub?

Giant panda mothers are thought unable to make enough milk for two cubs because they do not store fat, so the weaker twin is left to starve.

Which Star Wars film first revealed that Luke Skywalker and Leia are twins who were separated at birth?

Return of the Jedi has Obi-Wan's spirit tell Luke that Leia is his twin sister; their birth was not shown on screen until Revenge of the Sith, 22 years later.

Fraternal twins Robin and Maurice Gibb sang with their older brother Barry in which hit-making pop group?

Bee Gees twins Robin and Maurice were born minutes apart on the Isle of Man in December 1949, with Robin arriving first.

In Greek mythology, which goddess, a daughter of Zeus and Leto, was the twin sister of Apollo?

Artemis, in one telling, was born first and at once helped her mother deliver Apollo, which fits her role as a goddess of childbirth.

Which future British prime minister became the parent of twins named Carol and Mark in 1953?

Margaret Thatcher qualified as a barrister in the same year the twins arrived, and won her seat in Parliament six years later.

Which singer's 2017 pregnancy post, ahead of twins Rumi and Sir, set a record as Instagram's most-liked image?

Beyoncé drew more than six million likes within hours for the photo, and the twins, a girl and a boy, were born that June.

In Roman legend, which god was said to have fathered the twins Romulus and Remus with Rhea Silvia?

Mars, the god of war, made an awkward father: Rhea Silvia was a Vestal Virgin, forced into a vow of celibacy so that her family line would have no heirs.

In Marvel comics, the Scarlet Witch debuted in 1964 alongside a twin brother known by which code name?

Quicksilver, the super-fast Pietro Maximoff, began beside his sister as a reluctant villain in Magneto's Brotherhood before reforming and joining the Avengers.

In Game of Thrones, which member of House Lannister is the twin brother of Queen Cersei?

Jaime, the elder son of Tywin, serves in the Kingsguard and is mocked as the Kingslayer for killing the Mad King he was sworn to guard.

Fraternal twins Phil and Lil DeVille live next door to Tommy Pickles in which Nickelodeon cartoon?

Rugrats had one actor, Kath Soucie, voice both twins and their mother too; the pair were known among the babies for their revolting habits.

Twins Dipper and Mabel Pines spend a summer with their great-uncle Stan in which Disney animated series?

Gravity Falls takes its name from the fictional Oregon town where the twins' great-uncle runs a tourist trap called the Mystery Shack.

Dylan and Cole Sprouse played which twin brothers living in Boston's Tipton Hotel on a Disney Channel sitcom?

Zack and Cody Martin lived in the hotel because their mother sang in its lounge, and the twins later took the roles to sea in the sequel The Suite Life on Deck.

Twins Brandon and Brenda Walsh are the new kids from Minneapolis in which 1990s teen drama?

Beverly Hills, 90210 built its first seasons on the Walsh twins' culture shock, with Jason Priestley and Shannen Doherty as the Midwestern newcomers.

Michael B. Jordan plays identical twins nicknamed Smoke and Stack in which 2025 Ryan Coogler horror film?

Sinners sends the twins, both World War I veterans, home to Mississippi in 1932 after seven years working for the Chicago mob, only to face a band of vampires.

On The Simpsons, chain-smoking twins Patty and Selma are the older sisters of which character?

Marge Simpson and her twin sisters share a voice as well as a family: Julie Kavner plays all three, and the twins both work at the Springfield DMV.

Which half-cousin of Charles Darwin pioneered the use of twins to weigh nature against nurture?

Francis Galton surveyed twins by questionnaire and published 'The History of Twins' in 1875, and he popularised the phrase 'nature versus nurture'.

Which field of biology studies the chemical tags on DNA that make identical twins grow less alike with age?

Epigenetics found that young identical twins carry near-matching chemical marks, while older pairs, above all those who lived apart, differ markedly.

Which small South American monkeys usually give birth to fraternal twins that the father carries on his back?

Marmosets get unusual help from the father, who assists at the birth, cleans up afterwards and even bites through the umbilical cords.

What is the farming term for a female calf left infertile by sharing the womb with a male twin?

Freemartin calves start out genetically female but take up hormones and cells from their brother through shared blood vessels, which masculinizes them before birth.

Kodinhi, a village known worldwide for its unusually large number of twins, lies in which Indian state?

Kerala's Kodinhi stands out all the more because India has one of the lowest twinning rates in the world; the village founded the country's first twins association.

In the Book of Genesis, which wife of Isaac gave birth to the twins Jacob and Esau?

Rebecca felt the twins struggling inside her and was told that two nations were in her womb, and that the older would serve the younger.

In Hindu tradition, the twin brothers Lava and Kusha are the sons of the goddess Sita and which prince?

Rama's sons are said to have been the first to hear the Ramayana, recited by its composer Valmiki, and then to have spread the epic by travelling and performing it.

The exploits of the Hero Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque fill part of which sacred text of the K'iche' Maya?

Popol Vuh also holds the Maya creation story, and its tale of the twins is the oldest Maya myth to have survived in full.

The twins Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene were the children of Cleopatra and which Roman leader?

Mark Antony's twins were named for the sun and the moon, the meanings of Helios and Selene in Greek, and were taken to Rome after their parents' defeat.

William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway had twins, baptised in 1585, named Judith and what?

Hamnet died at eleven, a few years before his father wrote Hamlet; the twins were probably named after a Stratford baker and his wife, Hamnet and Judith Sadler.

Which Shakespeare play, set in Ephesus, follows two sets of identical twins who were separated at birth?

The Comedy of Errors doubles the confusion by giving twin masters, both named Antipholus, a pair of twin servants who are both named Dromio.

In Alexandre Dumas's fiction, the Man in the Iron Mask is the secret identical twin of which French king?

Louis XIV has a twin named Philippe in the novel, concealed and imprisoned from birth by his own parents, Louis XIII and Anne of Austria.

Twin boys Sam and Eric are among the few who stay loyal to Ralph in which classic island novel?

Lord of the Flies has the twins mistake a dead body for the feared beast, a blunder that spreads panic among William Golding's stranded schoolboys.

Fraternal twins Estha and Rahel are at the centre of which Booker Prize-winning novel set in India?

The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy's debut, cuts between 1969, when the twins are seven, and 1993, when they meet again as adults.

Which actor played both Winklevoss twins in the 2010 Facebook drama The Social Network?

Armie Hammer filmed his scenes beside a body double, Josh Pence, onto whose body his own likeness was then digitally imposed.

Nicolas Cage played twin screenwriters Charlie and Donald Kaufman in which Oscar-nominated 2002 film?

Adaptation lists the invented twin Donald as a co-writer in its own credits, beside the real Charlie Kaufman, who wrote himself into the script.

Which actor plays both twin gynecologists in David Cronenberg's 1988 thriller Dead Ringers?

Jeremy Irons played both Mantle brothers in a story drawn from the lives of the real Marcus twins, by way of a novel about them that was itself titled Twins.

Scottish twins Craig and Charlie Reid, famous for a 1988 hit about walking 500 miles, perform as which act?

The Proclaimers are identical twins born in Leith in 1962, and the song gave them number ones in Australia, Iceland and New Zealand.

Which Canadian singer-songwriter has a twin brother, Wade, a musician who is twelve minutes older?

Alanis Morissette's twin Wade also went into music, while her 1995 album Jagged Little Pill became one of the best-selling of all time.

The twin paradox, where a space traveller comes home younger than a twin left behind, tests whose theory?

Albert Einstein's special relativity makes a fast-moving clock run slow, so the travelling twin really does age less, a result physicists have been explaining since 1911.

People magazine reportedly paid $6 million in 2008 for the first photos of which singer's newborn twins?

Jennifer Lopez had toured while pregnant, and the fee made the pictures the most expensive celebrity photos ever taken up to that point.

Identical twins Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield are the heroines of which teen book series set in California?

Sweet Valley High was turned out by a team of ghostwriters under Francine Pascal, with the twins living in a fictional suburb near Los Angeles.

Which Canadian actor, the son of two actors, has a twin sister, Rachel, who works in film post-production?

Kiefer Sutherland's twin Rachel stayed behind the camera as a post-production supervisor, while he followed his parents, Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas, on screen.

Identical twins Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski served together as president and prime minister of which country?

Poland's ruling twins had been child stars first, playing the leads together in the 1962 film The Two Who Stole the Moon.

British twins Norris and Ross McWhirter founded and edited which annual reference work from 1955?

Guinness Book of Records work came the twins' way after the brewery's directors enjoyed quizzing them on records and unusual facts at an interview.

Conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker quit touring and made their home near Mount Airy in which state?

North Carolina turned the twins into American citizens and family men: they married local sisters and fathered 21 children between them.

Twins Phil and Steve Mahre finished first and second in the same 1984 Winter Olympic race in which sport?

Alpine skiing's slalom title went to Phil only after Steve, skiing last with victory in reach, made a series of mistakes and dropped to second.

Identical twins Bill and Tom Kaulitz began performing at age ten and went on to front which German rock band?

Tokio Hotel grew out of the twins' childhood act near Magdeburg, and its 2005 album Schrei sold more than half a million copies.

In Greek myth, Iphicles was the mortal twin of which hero, whose own father was Zeus?

Heracles and Iphicles shared a mother, Alcmene, but not a father: Iphicles was the son of her husband Amphitryon, whose shape Zeus had borrowed.

In Greek mythology, Thanatos, the personification of death, has a twin brother, Hypnos, who personifies what?

Sleep and death as twin brothers goes back to Homer's Iliad, where the pair carry a fallen hero home, and Hypnos is the origin of the word hypnosis.

Twin brothers Joel and Benji Madden formed which rock band in Waldorf, Maryland, in the 1990s?

Good Charlotte borrowed its name from a children's book about the girls of an orphanage, written by Carol Beach York.