Extract from Romany lavo lil by George Borrow:
"LEE.--The Gypsy name of this tribe is Purrum, sometimes pronounced Purrun. The meaning of Purrurn is an onion, and it may be asked what connection can there be between Lee and onion? None whatever: but
there is some resemblance in sound between Lee and leek, and it is probable that the Gypsies thought so, and on that account rendered the name by Purrum, which, if not exactly a leek, at any rate signifies something which is cousin-german to a leek. It must be borne in mind that in some parts of England the name Lee is spelt
Legh and Leigh, which would hardly be the case if at one time it had not terminated in something like a guttural, so that when the Gypsies rendered the name, perhaps nearly four hundred years ago, it sounded
very much like 'leek,' and perhaps was Leek, a name derived from the family crest. At first the writer was of opinion that the name was Purrun, a modification of pooro, which in the Gypsy language signifies old, but speedily came to the conclusion that it must be Purrum, a leek or onion; for what possible reason could the Gypsies have for rendering Lee by a word which signifies old or ancient? whereas by rendering it by Purrum, they gave themselves a Gypsy name, which, if it did not signify Lee, must to their untutored minds have
seemed a very good substitute for Lee. The Gypsy word pooro, old, belongs to Hindostan, and is connected with the Sanscrit pura, which signifies the same. "

Some of to-days Lees can trace their ancestry back to David lee and Sophia Stanley , David being the son of Elisha(Right Doer Lee) from this family alone we have some great names like Mooney , Righteous, Manfield and Bendigo and of course one of the best known Lee's would have to be Urania Lee.

Rainie (Urania) Boswell, nee Lee, was the famous 'Gipsy Lee' – often mistakenly called Gypsy 'Rose' Lee - the fortune-teller whose national fame for that skill was at its height in the first quarter of the 20th century.
Urania Lee was born in June 1851. Her father was Abraham Lee (born 28 May 1830; baptized 13 June 1830, Charlton, St Luke), a traveling brazier tinker of Charlton.
Her mother was Mary Smith (alias Sarah 'Pol' Lee) of Devil's Dyke.
She and her husband Levi, sometimes referred to as the 'King of the Gypsies', settled in Farnborough, Kent, where most of their family is buried.