A number of places in the US have been named for the various famous people named Lee: Michael C. O'Laughlin The Book of Irish Families: Great & Small – 2002 reprinted from Michael C. O'Laughlin Families of County Galway, Ireland – 1998 – Page 125 ", Genealogy Data: Frequently Occurring Surnames from Census 2000, Irish Genealogical Foundation: Book of Irish Families, 1901 Census of Ireland: Surname Lee in All Counties, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lee_(English_surname)&oldid=991223456, Articles with unsourced statements from March 2018, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 28 November 2020, at 23:18. He bestowed upon him the right to start his clan, a right only a yangban could ask, thus Jeong Dojeon created a new yangban clan. The progenitor was Yi Mu who was from Tang China. Namgang Lee Seung- Hun was also one of the most financially successful people during his time. [3], A few people with this surname historically spelled it Ye, as in Ye Wanyong of the Korean Empire. Also surname Yi (異) and Yi (伊) each have a different clans. Lee is the typical romanization of the common South Korean surname I (Hangul 이), North Korean surname Ri (리). The founder of this clan was Yi Gyeon-ung, who helped found the Goryeo Dynasty. The name in Ireland has several diverse origins, resulting in widely dispersed clusters of the name in South Western, Western (Galway) and North Eastern Counties. This system was at its height under the yangban aristocracy of the Joseon Dynasty, but it remains in use today. During its reign, the House of Yi consolidated its effective rule over the territory of current Korea, encouraged the entrenchment of Korean Confucian ideals and doctrines in Korean society, imported and adapted Chinese culture, and saw the height of classical Korean culture, trade, science, literature, and technology. Surname Info. Originating from Norway as "Lie", this surname was altered when it arrived in the Americas in the late 1800s to fit the English language's pronunciation. The name is written identically to the Chinese name Li 李 in Hanja characters. In the United States during the year 2000 census, "Lee" was the 22nd-most-common surname.[1]. The House of Yi, in conjunction to its royal status, has produced innumerable figures of extraordinary influences in politics, the sciences, the arts, finance and academia. However, the NIKL still hoped to promote systemic transcriptions for use in passports, and thus recommended that people who bore this surname should spell it Yi in the Roman alphabet. Pronunciation and Latin-alphabet spelling. This was a prominent yangban clan during the Joseon Dynasty, producing figures including the admiral Yi Sun-sin and the philosopher Yi I. The clan's ancestral seat was bestowed when his 9th generation descendant, Yi Gi-jong, was titled. Especially during the late Goryeo and early Joseon Dynasties, the Hongju Yi clan produced many outstanding and influential people, including Yi Yeon-su, Yi Seong, Yi Seo, and Yi Jong-jang. The founder of Yongin clan was Yi Gil-gwon who helped to found Goryeo. [6] The progenitor of this clan was Yi Seok from the Goryeo Dynasty. In his forties, Seunghun Lee devoted himself to social work and tried to support talented young people by founding the Kangmyung uisook and the Osan School. The clan's ancestral seat is Danyang. Korea is a country with complex and rich history and a diverse heritage background. And just … He died of strangulation near an isolated mountain. In a study based on 2007 application data for South Korean passports, it was found that 98.5% of people with this surname spelled it in Latin letters as Lee in their passports, while only 1.0% spelled it Yi. Lee also established the Chosun Education Association with Sang-Jae Lee and Jin-Tae Yoo, and continued his education business with Osan School as its center. "I." The founder of this clan was Yi Sun-yu, a prominent official of late Silla. [2] (Korean language site - "이" is spelled phonetically as "I") The specific reference is at the very bottom of the main entry, under the section "[인구 (人口) - 경주, 월성]," which gives both the 1985 census population of the clan at 1,217,279 individuals, and the 2000 population at 1,424,866 individuals. Descendents of the Jeonju Yi family perform rites called Jongmyo jerye to honor their ancestors in an annual ceremony the Korean government has declared an Important Intangible Cultural Asset. This is the most popular surname in Korea. It is the second-most-common surname in Korea, behind only Kim. Updated July 03, 2019. The House of Yi ruled Joseon for 518 years between 1392 and 1910, and established many of the cultural, artistic and linguistic foundations for modern-day Korea. Lee is a surname with many possible meanings and origins: The surname LEA, including the common alternate spelling LEE, was originally given to a person who lived in or near a laye, from the Middle English meaning "clearing in the woods." In 1931, he was again sentenced to 3 years because he was one of the thirty three national representatives for the March 1st Independence Movement. Li is the second most common surname in China as of 2018, behind Wang. The Lees of Shropshire, Wiltshire, and Yorkshire were notable as the forebears of the colonial American Lee family which produced Richard Henry Lee, Robert Edward Lee, and Zachary Taylor. The clan seat, Deoksu, corresponds to Deoksu-hyeon, an old division of what is now Kaep'ung-gun in Kaesong city, North Korea. 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