Origin and formation

Lee has several independent origins. As an English surname it comes from Old English leah, “woodland” or “clearing”, for someone living near that landscape. A Chinese surname written 李 is read Lí in Hokkien and Lei⁵ in Cantonese, with Lee used in Roman letters. A Korean surname also written 李 can appear as Lee through the reading Ri. The same Roman spelling therefore represents different language histories. Philippine surname forms related to the Chinese reading include Li, Dy and Dee, each with its own spelling history.

Source 1 ↗ Source 2 ↗ Source 3 ↗

Spelling variants

Dictionary pronunciation

Public figures with this surname

Elected officials in the 2001 list

Lee has 6 records in the OpenHalalan transcription of the 2001 COMELEC elected-candidate lists.

OpenHalalan — 2001 ↗

Contains information from OpenHalalan by Robert R. Leung, available under the Open Database License (ODbL) 1.0. ODbL 1.0 ↗ · Download surname counts

Related given-name entries

The given-name catalogue has separate entries with the same spelling. Each page explains its own given-name use and sources.