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Concept
Lee (Korean surname)
Summary
Lee, I, or Yi () is the second-most-common surname in Korea, behind Kim (김). Historically, 李 was officially written as Ni () in Korea. The spelling officially changed to I () in 1933 when the initial sound rule () was established. In North Korea, it is romanized as Ri () because there is no distinction between the alveolar liquids /l/ and /r/ in modern Korean. As of the South Korean census of 2015, there were 7,306,828 people by this name in South Korea or 14.7% of the population.
Though the official Revised Romanization spelling of this surname is I, South Korea's National Institute of the Korean Language noted in 2001 that one-letter surnames were quite rare in English and other foreign languages and could cause difficulties when traveling abroad. 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.
However, the majority of South Koreans with this surname continue to spell it as Lee, because conditions for changing passport names are strict. 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".
A few people with this surname historically spelled it Ye, as in Ye Wanyong of the Korean Empire. Rhee has also been used, as in Syngman Rhee and Simon Hang-bock Rhee.
As with all Korean family names, the holders of the Yi surname are divided into patrilineal clans, or lineages, known in Korean as bon-gwan, based on their ancestral seat. Most such clans trace their lineage back to a specific founder, and are generally not related to one another. This system was at its height under the yangban aristocracy of the Joseon Dynasty, but it remains in use today. There are approximately 241 such clans claimed by South Koreans. Most people with surname Yi (李) in Korea belong to either the Jeonju or Gyeongju clans. Also, surnames Yi (異) and Yi (伊) each have a different clans.
Official source
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