Vaughan surname meaning

Vaughan is a Welsh surname from fychan, the lenited form of bychan, a diminutive of bach, “little.” The byname often marked the younger of two people with the same given name—typically a son beside a father—or someone of small stature, so nickname is the catalog type. English clerks turned the Welsh sound into Vaughan and later Vaughn. Related spellings include Vawn and Vawhan. DAFN’s Vaughan entry is a single clear Welsh stream; American Vaughn can sometimes overlap other Irish routes, but the Vaughan spelling itself is high-confidence nickname from bychan.