Banu Kalb
Yazid was born in Syria. His year of birth is uncertain, placed between 642 and 649. His father was Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, then governor of Syria under Caliph Uthman (). Mu'awiya and Uthman belonged to the wealthy Umayyad clan of the Quraysh tribe, a grouping of Meccan clans to which the Islamic prophet Muhammad and all the preceding caliphs belonged. Yazid's mother, Maysun, was the daughter of Bahdal ibn Unayf, a chieftain of the powerful Bedouin tribe of Banu Kalb. She was a Christian, like most of her tribe. Yazid grew up with his maternal Kalbite kin, spending the springs of his youth in the Syrian Desert; for the remainder of the year he was in the company of the Greek and native Syrian courtiers of his father, who became caliph in 661.