Audrey Claire begets Audrey Claire: Couple name baby after Center City restaurant
When the couple found out that a baby girl was on the way, “there was never another thought," dad Jason Craparo said. "She was just going to be ‘Audrey Claire.’”
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You’ve heard of people naming their babies after a favorite song or movie — the Barry Manilow Mandys and Love Story Jennifers.
How about after a favorite restaurant? Not as common. You probably won’t see a Buddakan or a Fork on classroom lists — though 40 years ago, Joe and Pam Bryant of Lower Merion named their son Kobe after a once-popular Japanese steak house in King of Prussia, and the rest is NBA history.
“Audrey Claire,” however, figures into the local name database. Take Lara Pyle and Jason Craparo, who are fans of both the BYOB restaurant and the Rittenhouse Square collaborative studio kitchen.
When they found out last September that Pyle was pregnant with their third child and it was to be a girl, “there was never another thought," Craparo said. "She was just going to be ‘Audrey Claire.’”
And so on April 24, the Montgomery County couple welcomed Audrey Claire Craparo, who joined siblings Noah, 3, and Piper, 1. (Piper was named after the plane; Dad is a private pilot and Mom is a clinical research associate in health care.)
Craparo said friends and family love the name, but not everyone is getting the connection. “We moved from Fairmount out to the suburbs, and a lot of folks don’t know of it,” he said. “Our friends from the city ask, ‘After the restaurant?!’”
At the restaurant at 20th and Spruce Streets, “we just sit out front and have wine and dinner,” he said. “The Cook spot [which hosts cooking demonstrations] is just near and dear to us. We like that kind of atmosphere.”
There is an Audrey Claire behind Audrey Claire: Audrey Claire Taichman opened the BYOB in 1996 and opened Cook, up the block at 20th Street and Rittenhouse Square, in 2011. Taichman has since sold the BYOB and her other restaurant, Twenty Manning Grill, to Rob Wasserman, who also owns the nearby Rouge. Taichman still owns Cook.
The Craparos don’t have the only Audrey Claire out there. “It’s really sweet,” Taichman said of the homage to her restaurants. “People ask me to send my business cards so their little girls can have them.”
Michele and Ed Subers of Media have an Audrey Claire, born in 2001. (The couple were regulars at Twenty Manning back then and liked the name.) Audrey and her twin brother, Aiden, are seniors at Strath Haven High School and are bound for Pennsylvania State University’s engineering school.
Taichman said she was not named after anyone in particular. In fact, "my parents didn’t have a name for me for a month,” she said. “After four other kids, I guess they were tapped out.”
This article has been updated.