HALL - Name Meaning & Origin

The Hall surname has several possible derivations, including geographic, descriptive, and occupational:

1. A place name derived from various words for "hall" or "spacious house," usually used to signify someone who lived in or worked in a large hall or manor house. From the Middle English hall, Old English heall, Middle High German halle and Old Norse holl.
2. From the Norse hale and Anglo-Saxon haele, meaning "hero."
3. Possibly an old Norse word for "boulder, slope," thus meaning someone who lived on a slope.
4. Possibly from the Norwegian hallr, meaning "flint."

Hall is the 30th most popular surname in the United States and the 20th most common in England.

Surname Origin: English, Scottish, Irish, German, Scandinavian

Alternate Surname Spellings: HALLE, HAALL, HAUL, HAULL, HAWL, HOLL

Famous People With the Last Name HALL

• Lloyd Augustus Hall - Chemist and inventor
• Donald Hall - poet
• Charles Martin Hall - inventor of the aluminum manufacturing process
• Joyce Hall - founder of Hallmark Cards
• G. Stanley Hall - American psychologist; established the concept of child psychology and founded Clark University.
• Arsenio Hall - American actor, comedian, and first Black late-night talk show host

Genealogy Resources for the HALL Surname

100 Most Common U.S. Surnames & Their Meanings
Smith, Johnson, Williams, Jones, Brown... Are you one of the millions of Americans sporting one of these top 100 common last names from the 2000 census?

Common English Surnames & Their Meanings
Explore the meanings and origins of the 100 most common English surnames.

The Hall DNA Project
Over 170 Hall descendants have donated their DNA toward the goal of learning more about Hall ancestors worldwide.

The Hall Genealogy Website
This site collects genealogy information related to HALL descendants worldwide, although the major focus is on Halls from the island of Great Britain.

FamilySearch - HALL Genealogy
Find records, queries, and lineage-linked family trees posted for the Hall surname and its variations.

HALL Surname & Family Mailing Lists
RootsWeb hosts several free mailing lists for researchers of the Hall surname.

DistantCousin.com - HALL Genealogy & Family History
Free databases and genealogy links for the last name Hall.

References: Surname Meanings & Origins

• Cottle, Basil. Penguin Dictionary of Surnames. Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1967.
• Menk, Lars. A Dictionary of German Jewish Surnames. Avotaynu, 2005.
• Beider, Alexander. A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from Galicia. Avotaynu, 2004.
• Hanks, Patrick and Flavia Hodges. A Dictionary of Surnames. Oxford University Press, 1989.
• Hanks, Patrick. Dictionary of American Family Names. Oxford University Press, 2003.
• Smith, Elsdon C. American Surnames. Genealogical Publishing Company, 1997.