Bruce Lee's Real Name: Lee Jun-fan He/Him

Bruce Lee's birth name is Lee Jun-fan (Chinese: 李振藩). His widely used Chinese screen name is Lee Siu-lung (李小龍), which means “Little Dragon.” The English name Bruce was given at the San Francisco hospital where he was born. He is not the same person as Bruce Li (Ho Chung-tao), a later martial-arts actor.

Facts checked Nov 6, 2026.

Real name and early life

The Library of Congress name authority lists him as Bruce Lee (1940–1973), with variants including Lee Jun Fan, Lee Siu Loong / Lee Siu Lung, and Li Xiaolong (Library of Congress). The Hong Kong Film Archive gives the same birth name, Lee Jun-fan, and the dates November 27, 1940–July 20, 1973 (Hong Kong Film Archive).

The official Bruce Lee estate biography says he was born Bruce Jun Fan Lee (Lee Siu Loong) on November 27, 1940, at the Jackson Street Hospital in San Francisco’s Chinatown, while his parents—Cantonese opera performer Lee Hoi Chuen and Grace Ho—were on tour. His parents named him Jun Fan. A nurse at the hospital gave him the English name Bruce, which he later used in school. He was the fourth of five children (older siblings Phoebe, Agnes, and Peter; younger brother Robert). The family returned to Hong Kong when he was an infant, and he was raised there until age 18 (Bruce Lee official biography).

At 13 he began studying wing chun gung fu with master Yip Man (Ip Man). He appeared as a child actor in about 20 films, including work the Hong Kong Film Archive dates from 1948, with early notice for The Kid (1950) and later The Orphan (1960). In 1958 he also won a Hong Kong cha-cha championship. In April 1959, at 18, he sailed back to the United States, settled in Seattle, and later studied philosophy at the University of Washington (Bruce Lee official biography; Hong Kong Film Archive).

Career highlights

Lee opened the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute in Seattle, then schools in Oakland and Los Angeles. He married Linda Emery in 1964. Their son, Brandon Bruce Lee, was born February 1, 1965; their daughter, Shannon Emery Lee, was born April 19, 1969. A 1964 demonstration at Ed Parker’s Long Beach International Karate Tournament led to a screen test and the role of Kato on ABC’s The Green Hornet (1966–1967). In those years he developed Jeet Kune Do, which the official biography translates as “the way of the intercepting fist,” emphasizing simplicity, directness, and personal freedom rather than a fixed traditional style (Bruce Lee official biography; Hong Kong Film Archive).

After limited Hollywood work, he returned to Hong Kong and starred in The Big Boss (1971), Fist of Fury (1972), and The Way of the Dragon (1972), which he also wrote and directed. Those films broke Hong Kong box-office records. He then made Enter the Dragon (1973), the first Hollywood–Hong Kong co-production of its kind. He died in Hong Kong on July 20, 1973, at age 32, before Enter the Dragon was released. A coroner’s inquest determined a hypersensitive reaction to an ingredient in the prescription painkiller Equagesic caused swelling of fluid on the brain (cerebral edema), leading to a coma and death (Bruce Lee official biography; HISTORY). Game of Death, begun earlier, was left unfinished and later completed for a 1978 release (Hong Kong Film Archive).

Name notes for searchers

Lee Jun-fan (李振藩) is the documented birth name. Lee Siu-lung / Lee Siu Loong (李小龍), “Little Dragon,” is the Chinese acting name used in his Hong Kong career. Bruce is the English given name from his San Francisco birth record, not a later stage invention. Kato is a Green Hornet character name, not his personal name. Do not confuse him with Bruce Li (real name Ho Chung-tao), a separate actor from the later “Bruceploitation” wave; see Bruce Li’s RealNameOf page.