Lee Family History

Some characteristic forenames: Chinese Young, Sang, Jae, Jong, Jung, Sung, Yong, Kyung, Seung, Dong, Kwang, Myung.

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’.

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.

Irish: shortened Anglicized form of Ó Laoidhigh ‘descendant of Laoidheach’, a personal name derived from laoidh ‘poem, song’ (originally a byname for a poet).

Americanized form of Norwegian Lie or Li 11.

Chinese: variant Romanization of the surnames 李, 黎, 利, 栗, 厲, and 酈. See Li 1-6.

Chinese: variant Romanization of the surname 雷, see Lei 1.

Chinese: variant Romanization of the surname 呂, see Lu 6.

Southeast Asian (Hmong): variant of Ly 2.

Southeast Asian (Iu Mien): from the name of the Lee clan of the Iu Mien people from Laos. Compare Saelee .

Korean: variant of Yi .

History: Among those who brought the surname Lee to North America was Richard Lee (1617–64) from Shropshire, England, who arrived in 1639 and settled in VA to became a planter and legislator. His great-grandsons included the brothers Arthur, Francis L., Richard Henry, and William Lee, all prominent American Revolution legislators and diplomats. The Civil War Confederate General Robert E. Lee (1807–70) was another member of this family, the son of Henry ‘Lighthorse Harry’ Lee (1756–1818), another revolutionary war hero.