Where the Young name comes from

Young is the Old English geong, and it did a practical job: it told a father and a son apart when both had the same first name, or marked the younger of two brothers. Every language in Europe worked out the same trick, giving German Jong and Junk, Dutch de Jongh, and French Lejeune and LaJeunesse. A great many Youngs are not English at all but Chinese, the surname 楊 romanised from Cantonese or Hokkien, which elsewhere comes out as Yeung, Yeoh or Yang. It ranks 19th in Scotland, 34th in the United States and 49th in England and Wales.