For many years the Lelean family believed that their name was French and that their ancestor could have been a Huguenot who fled France following the St Bartholomew's Day massacre. Research carried out in the 1960s by Leonard Lelean and Ronald Lelean Sharman however suggests that the name is much older than the time of the Huguenots, and may well derive from a Cornish place-name, Leighlean, meaning 'a flat, muddy place.