Young: A Surname History

Description

Young: A Surname History — Volume 36 of The Surname Histories Series. The younger’s name — from Old English geong through Middle English yong/yunge/yonge, the clerk’s way of telling two men apart by calling one “the younger”; a Scottish name first (Dumbarton 1271, the Strachan and Carmylie charters, Clan Young armigerous with no chief), with Gaelic Og → Ogg and the continental tributaries (Chinese Yang, German Jung, Dutch Jong, French Lejeune) in the stream. YOUNG stands No. 32 in the 2010 U.S. Census with 484,447 bearers — up from No. 31 in 2000 (465,948), a +4.0% rise (+18,499 bearers) — sitting directly behind Walker at #31 and completing the series’ twelve-book running echo (Lee #21 → Pérez #22 → Thompson #23 → White #24 → Harris #25 → Sánchez #26 → Clark #27 → Ramírez #28 → Lewis #29 → Robinson #30 → Walker #31 → Young #32). The signature story is Whitney M. Young Jr. (1921–1971) — executive director of the National Urban League (1961–1971), who grew its staff from 38 to 1,600, proposed the $145 billion Domestic Marshall Plan that shaped Johnson’s War on Poverty, advised Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969, and helped organize the 1963 March on Washington — honored in prose and with one verified portrait plate: the NY World-Telegram & Sun photograph by John Bottega (Library of Congress, “no known copyright restrictions,” via Wikimedia Commons); no AI likeness of any real person appears in the volume. A gallery of bearers runs from Brigham Young — second president of the Latter Day Saint movement, who led the Mormon exodus west and founded Salt Lake City — through Cy Young, whose 511 wins remain the all-time pitching record, Loretta Young, Academy Award winner for The Farmer’s Daughter, Thomas Young, the polymath who established the wave theory of light, to Neil Young, the rock legend, and Andrew Young, the civil-rights leader, congressman, U.N. ambassador, and mayor of Atlanta; six heraldic plates — Young of Bailieborough Castle, Baron Lisgar, Young of North Dean, Sir Charles George Young (Garter King of Arms), John Young (Bishop of Rochester), and the blank honest shield, drawn programmatically from published blazons — show why no single coat of arms belongs to a surname (Burke’s General Armory records thirty-six distinct Young arms); and a gazetteer of Young places maps Young, Arizona; Youngstown, Ohio; and Youngtown, Arizona.