Already have an account?
Get back to the
Entertainment

Will Prince Harry’s Baby Have Red Hair?

Tags:

The world rejoiced when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle debuted their royally adorable baby. Since his head was covered with a hat, fans began to excitedly speculate about what color the newborn’s hair might be. After all, Harry is one of the world’s most famous redheads. But will Archie follow in his father’s ginger footsteps?

Meghan boasts gorgeous dark brown tresses, but if she carries a specific gene, their baby boy may have red hair like his father. According to geneticists at Stanford University, the gene that determines if someone has red hair is called MC1R. There are three different combinations of this gene: rr, the recessive red version; RR, the dominant non-red version; and, Rr, the carrier. As one might expect, rr leads to red hair and RR leads to a person having a different hair color. A little less obvious, though, is that folks with the carrier version almost never have red hair due to the dominant part beating out the recessive. But interestingly, they can pass along the recessive gene to their child. 

So where do the Duke and Duchess of Sussex stand? We know Prince Harry has the rr gene, while Meghan could be RR or Rr. If she is the latter, she could either pass the dominant R or recessive r down to her child. Since this copy is chosen totally at random, that would mean that Archie (or any future child of the couple) would have a 50 percent chance of having red hair. However, if Meghan is not a carrier, it is extremely unlikely that any of their offspring will have Titian tresses. 

In this scenario, though, the child would end up being a carrier of the “red version,” according to Owlcation. So even though he wouldn’t have red hair himself, there would be a possibility of his future children being redheads. But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here.

As the Associated Press pointed out, it’s still way too early for anyone — even Harry and Meghan — to tell if the baby will have red hair. After all, hair color changes as time goes on and it’s quite common for the hair a baby is born with to fall out and grown back a completely different color. So we all just have to sit tight and wait for more sweet photos of Archie as he grows up.

But one thing’s for sure, no matter what color hair this royal baby ends up with, we know he’ll wear it well!

More From Woman’s World

Why Did Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Choose the Name Archie?

5 Things You Missed During Prince Harry and Meghan’s Royal Baby Debut

How Harry and Meghan’s Birth Announcement Was Different Than William and Kate’s

Use left and right arrow keys to navigate between menu items. Use right arrow key to move into submenus. Use escape to exit the menu. Use up and down arrow keys to explore. Use left arrow key to move back to the parent list.