Lee

Derived from the Old English lēah, meaning a meadow or woodland clearing. It functioned for centuries as a geographic surname before migrating into use as a given name during the nineteenth century. American parents adopted the compact single syllable for both boys and girls, cementing it as an all-purpose given name by the early decades of the twentieth century.

A Lee is pictured today as an adult who knows how to operate a drill press or sign a lease without asking follow-up questions. The name reads as an efficient 1950s baseline, carrying an average holder age of fifty-eight and an absolute minimum of decorative consonants. About twenty-one percent of all Lees in the record are female, though the name avoids announcing its gender until someone walks into the waiting room. It is the sort of name that sounds entirely finished after three letters.