 The town is a receival site for Cooperative Bulk Handling.The name is believed to mean "land of many waters" in the local Noongar language and was first recorded as a place name in a survey of the area in 1869; it was previously spelt "Yornanmunging" or "Yernanunging".In the late 1890s, a siding on the Great Southern Railway called simply "Water Tank" was established here, and the name Yornaning was finally arrived at in 1905 after several renamings.