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    The surnameLee

    An English place surname, the 21st most common in the United States.

    Pronounced /liː/ 1 syllable Soundex L000 Also a first name

    Lee: #21 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#100Jimenez#1,000Archer#10,001Dubon Lee #21, 693,023 people Lee: #21 of 162,253 surnames in the 2010 US Census #1Smith#160,975Doriott#1,000Archer Lee #21, 693,023 people
    Every surname held by 100 or more people in the 2010 US Census, most common on the left (162,253 in all). Lee is more common than 99.9% of them.

    Origin

    English origin

    From Old English lēa, the dative case of lēah (“meadow”), originally to denote someone who lived near a meadow.

    Lee is a place surname: taken from where an ancestor lived or came from.

    One of 1,446 English surnames on this site.

    Origin from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0).

    How common it is

    2010 US Census

    There were 693,023 people named Lee in the United States in 2010, about 1 in every 446 Americans. That is up 14% since 2000, when the Census counted 605,860.

    #21
    rank among US surnames
    693,023
    people in 2010
    235
    per 100,000 Americans
    +14.4%
    change since 2000 (was #22)
    RankSurnamePeople1 in
    #12López874,523353
    #13Gonzalez841,025367
    #14Wilson801,882385
    #15Anderson784,404394
    #16Thomas756,142408
    #17Taylor751,209411
    #18Moore724,374426

    Who is named Lee

    Race and Hispanic origin as people reported it in the 2010 Census

    42% of people named Lee identified as Asian and Pacific Islander, 36% as white (not Hispanic) and 16% as Black (not Hispanic).

    • Asian and Pacific Islander 42%
    • White (not Hispanic) 36%
    • Black (not Hispanic) 16%
    • Two or more races 2.6%
    • Hispanic or Latino (any race) 1.9%
    • American Indian and Alaska Native 1.0%

    Compare: most common surnames among Asian and Pacific Islander Americans.

    Famous Lees

    201 notable people on Wikidata, most written-about first

    • Kuan Yew Lee
      1st Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore (1923–2015)
    • Harper Lee
      American novelist (1926–2016)
    • Lee Hsien Loong
      3rd Prime Minister of Singapore from 2004 to 2024
    • Spike Lee
      American filmmaker (born 1957)
    • Amy Lee
      American singer, pianist and songwriter, born 1981
    • David Lee
      American physicist and Nobel Prize laureate, born 1931
    • Jason Lee
      American actor, comedian and professional skateboarder, born 1970
    • Jason Scott Lee
      American actor and martial artist, born 1966
    • Tommy Lee
      American drummer (born 1962)
    • Sunisa Lee
      American artistic gymnast, born 2003
    • Jennifer Lee
      American film director (born 1971)
    • Bobby Lee
      American stand-up comedian, born 1971

    Notable Lees come mostly from the United States (143), Joseon (21) and the United Kingdom (11).

    Spellings and sound-alikes

    Useful when a record has your ancestor under another spelling

    Variant spellings

    Surnames that sound like Lee

    Lee has the Soundex code L000, the code US census indexes have used since the 1930s. Every surname with code L000.

    Other English surnames

    All 1,446 English surnames

    Questions

    Where does the surname Lee come from?
    From Old English lēa, the dative case of lēah (“meadow”), originally to denote someone who lived near a meadow.
    How common is the surname Lee?
    693,023 people in the United States had the surname Lee in the 2010 Census, about 1 in every 446 Americans. It ranked 21st of 162,253 surnames.
    What ethnicity is the surname Lee?
    In the 2010 Census, 42% of people named Lee identified as Asian and Pacific Islander, and 36% as white (not Hispanic).
    Who is the most famous person named Lee?
    Kuan Yew Lee, 1st Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore (1923–2015), followed by Harper Lee.