Young
also Younge, MacYoung
Descriptive — the younger — sister surname to Vaughan in Wales and Óg in Ireland.
Draft entry · awaiting community review
CoreHistoric reach
The seat of Young
Seat vacantChief
No chief yet. The seat awaits its first claimant — be the first to stake your name to Young.
Current mission
No mission proclaimed. The chief, once seated, sets the clan’s public focus — a campaign, a contest, a piece of restoration, a year of remembrance.
The pledge surface for chiefdoms and missions is being built. Until it ships, register your name through the submit form.
Stake your name →What does the Young name mean?
Descriptive — the younger. Old English geong, applied as a personal byname distinguishing a son who shared a forename with a father or older kinsman. Direct equivalent of the Welsh Vaughan (Fychan), the Irish Óg, the Scottish Gaelic Òg. A descriptive surname, frozen at the moment of Tudor-era surname compression.
The history of Young
Young is among the more common Scots surnames, densest in the north-east — Aberdeenshire and Banff — and across the Borders. The descriptive 'younger' was as natural a byname in medieval Scots as in any other Germanic vernacular, and like Brown and Reid it froze into hereditary use without further compression.
Andrew Young (1885–1971), the Borders-born Anglican clergyman and poet, wrote some of the finest English-language nature poetry of the inter-war period. Brigham Young (1801–1877), the second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the founder of Salt Lake City, descended from a 17th-century English-Young emigrant line ultimately of Lowland Scots origin.
Sir James Young Simpson (1811–1870) — discoverer of the anaesthetic properties of chloroform in 1847 and the founding figure of modern anaesthesia and obstetrics — was a Bathgate-born physician of the Lowland Young line, his middle name preserving the maternal surname.
Notable bearers of the Young name
- Sir James Young Simpson (1811–1870) — pioneer of obstetric anaesthesia
- Andrew Young (1885–1971) — Borders nature-poet
- Neil Young (b. 1945) — Canadian musician of Scots-Young descent