I'm interested in learning how the term yank got its name. I'm also interested in why Vi/Vim "yank" differs from Emacs "yank".
See also: same question on Unix & Linux; dual question about Emacs
The text is dragged/moved/pulled/yanked into to clipboard. It's just a synonymous found to be easy to remember the y key, since all other keys are used.
yis described as "yank operator, for copies and moves". As mentioned in romainl's link, the reason that yank was chosen is probably because theykey was free. – Martin Tournoij Oct 1 '15 at 21:04w... – VanLaser Oct 2 '15 at 17:33