Lee (Korean Name)
Lee is the typical romanization of the common South Korean surname I ( 이) and North Korean surname Ri (리). It is the second-most-common surname in Korea, behind only Kim.
The name is derived from the very common Chinese surname Li (Chinese: 李, Lǐ, "plum") and is written identically to the Chinese in Hanja characters. In South Korean, the modern pronunciation is like the English letter "E" (IPA: ) and it is therefore sometimes romanized as Yi, particularly when it is used as a given name. The traditional pronunciation – still employed in North Korean – was similar to the English surname "Lee" (IPA: ), although Korean tends to shift the phoneme l to r at the beginning of words, leading to the pronunciation /riː/, which produces the occasional romanizations Rhee, Rhie, and Ri.
Read more about Lee (Korean Name): Distribution, Clans
Famous quotes containing the word lee:
“When that kid looks into your eyes and you know it’s yours, you know what it means to be alive.”
—Anonymous Father. Quoted in When Men are Pregnant, by Jerrold Lee Shapiro, ch. 15 (1987)