Geneanet > Resources > Family Names > LEE

Origin and popularity of the name LEE

Origin

Lee : 1: English: topographic name for someone who lived near a meadow or a patch of arable land Middle English lee lea from Old English lēa dative case (used after a preposition) of lēah which originally meant ‘wood or glade’.2: English: habitational name from any of the many places in England named with Old English lēah ‘wood glade’ including Lee in Buckinghamshire Essex Hampshire Kent and Shropshire and Lea in Cheshire Derbyshire Herefordshire Lancashire Lincolnshire and Wiltshire.3: Irish: shortened Anglicized form of Ó Laoidhigh ‘descendant of Laoidheach’ a personal name derived from laoidh ‘poem song’ (originally a byname for a poet).4: Americanized form of Norwegian Lie or Li 11.5: Chinese: variant Romanization of the surnames 李 黎 利 栗 厲 and 酈. See Li 1-6.6: Chinese: variant Romanization of the surname 雷 see Lei 1.7: Chinese: variant Romanization of the surname 呂 see Lu 6.8: Southeast Asian (Hmong): variant of Ly 2.9: Southeast Asian (Iu Mien): from the name of the Lee clan of the Iu Mien people from Laos. Compare Saelee.10: Korean: variant of Yi 1. Compare Lie 3.

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Source : DAFN2 : Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, ©2022 by Patrick Hanks and Oxford University Press
FANBI : The Oxford Dictionary if Family Names in Britain and Ireland, ©2016, University of the West of England

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Last name frequency

Geographic distribution of the 352,934 individuals with the name LEE on Geneanet.

 

Most found places for the name LEE:

    This last name in the family trees

    See below the Geneanet members' family trees which contain the last name LEE

    z010121
    (2,769 individuals)
    marialenajolicoeur
    (2,744 individuals)
    wbuchanan
    (2,722 individuals)
    toddbryan
    (2,307 individuals)

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