Lee
Lee is the 19th most common surname in the United States, shared by 695,657 people at the 2020 census. That is about one person in 430.
By the numbers
- People
- 695,657
- Rank
- 19th
- How common
- 1 in 430
- Per 100,000
- 232.7
Where the name comes from
Origin Middle English
From Old English lēa, the dative case of lēah (“meadow”), originally to denote someone who lived near a meadow.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Who bears the name
How people with the surname Lee described their own race and Hispanic origin at the 2020 census:
Notable people called Lee
- Bruce Lee (1940–1973)Hong Kong–American martial artist and actor
- Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015)1st Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore
- Christopher Lee (1922–2015)English actor and singer
- Harper Lee (1926–2016)American novelist
- Robert E. Lee (1807–1870)Confederate States general
- Stan Lee (1922–2018)American comic book writer, editor, publisher, and producer
- Ang Lee (born 1954)Taiwanese film director, screenwriter and producer
- Lee Min-ho (born 1987)South Korean actor, singer and model
People named Lee with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Surnames like Lee
Also a first name
Lee has been given to 295,926 American babies as a first name since 1880, peaking in 1951. See it as a given name.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Census Bureau, Frequently Occurring Surnames, 2020. The Census describes the file as the surnames borne by 100 or more people; rarer names are not published. The line is not quite exact, and 617 published names come in under it, the smallest at 92 people. Race and Hispanic origin are self-reported. Rates are worked out against the 298.9 million people the file's own figures are calculated on, which is fewer than the census counted in all: the difference is everyone whose surname was too rare to publish.