A baby is born every 51 minutes in Philadelphia. But few of them are bestowed with the $330 million endowment and excellent hair genes passed down by Phillies superstar and brand new father Bryce Harper.
Even more uncommon than the baby boy’s instant wealth? His name.
Born on Thursday, Aug. 22, to Bryce and his wife Kayla, the Phillies descendent has been dubbed Krew Aron Harper. Only a couple hundred American babies were branded with that first name last year, according to the Social Security Administration — 222, to be exact, making up just 0.012% of the total male births.
Meanwhile, 3% of Americans are counted as millionaires in 2019. So the tiny Harper’s name is literally more rare than his father’s income.
Obviously, the li’l guy will have something of a unique childhood. But what’s up with that name?
“Krew” on its own means…nothing, really. There’s speculation among baby naming websites that it’s just a variation of crew, aka “a group of people working together on a common task.” You know, sort of like a sports team.
Also possible: a deviation from Crew, as in the Welsh surname derived from a place called Crewe. That’s loosely translated from the word “cryw,” in reference to a dam-like structure built across the local river used to catch fish.
But in this case, we’re guessing the name selection has something to do with Harper’s faith.
The baseball prodigy is a devout Mormon, and he’s got family in Utah. Probably not a coincidence: that’s the state in which the first name Krew is most popular. Even though it’s relatively scarce nationwide 941st in popularity last year — it’s way more common out west.
Utah, home to an abundance of Latter Day Saints, saw Krew break the top 200 in its name ranks last year, coming in at No. 197.
Harper hasn’t yet spoken publicly about why he and Kayla chose the name. Starting last Friday, Harper was out for paternity leave (nice job on being progressive, Phillies). He returns on Monday night for the home matchup against the Pirates.
There’s one indisputable fact about the bundle of joy. On day 4 of his life, Krew is already more famous than most people ever get to be.
