Vaughan

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A Welsh given name or family name derived from a word meaning small ; a municipality north of Toronto in the Canadian province of Ontario
2. Used as a Welsh first name or surname of old Celtic origin ; the name of a large suburban city located in the Greater Toronto Area
3. A personal name of Welsh origin borne by many people ; a city in the Canadian province of Ontario, just north of Toronto

Etymology: Vaughan is a Welsh given name, and its form in English comes from a Welsh phrase rather than an English root. It is borrowed from Welsh "Vychan", a shortened form of "fychan" or "bychan" meaning "little". The name is built from "bach" ("little") in its diminutive form, so the sense is roughly "the younger" or "the lesser one". The name was used to tell apart two people with the same first name, with the smaller or younger of the pair marked by this word. Over time the epithet hardened into a surname and then a first name, a common pattern in Welsh naming where descriptive tags became family names.