English, Scottish, Irish, German, and Scandinavian: from Middle English hall (Old English heall), Middle High German halle, Old Norse hōll all meaning ‘hall’ (a spacious residence), hence a topographic name for someone who lived in or near a hall or an occupational name for a servant employed at a hall. In some cases it may be a habitational name from places named with this word, which in some parts of Germany and Austria in the Middle Ages also denoted a salt mine. The English name has been established in Ireland since the Middle Ages, and, according to MacLysaght, has become numerous in Ulster since the 17th century.
FOREBEARS Hall is one of the commonest and most widely distributed of English surnames, bearing witness to the importance of the hall as a feature of the medieval village. John Hall, an Englishman born in Kent in 1584 who emigrated to New England in 1632, founded a notable American family, whose members have included Lyman Hall (1724–90), politician and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence; Asaph Hall (1829–1907), astronomer, who discovered the two satellites of Mars; and Stanley Hall (1844–1924), pioneer in psychophysics. Another John Hall emigrated to America in about 1652, settling in MA. His descendants include Charles M. Hall (1863–1914), who invented a process for the mass production of aluminum. A certain David Hall, born in Edinburgh around 1714, became a partner of Benjamin Franklin's in the printing business.
