English, Scottish, Irish, German, Norwegian, and Danish: from Middle English hall (Old English heall), Middle High German halle, Old Norse hǫll 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 any of the places called with this word, which in some parts of Germany and Austria in the Middle Ages also denoted a salt mine. 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. The English surname has been established in Ireland since the 14th century, and, according to MacLysaght, has become numerous in Ulster since the 17th century.

Swedish: ornamental or topographic name from hall ‘hall’ (a spacious residence), or a habitational name from a placename containing the element hall ‘rock’ (from Old Norse hallr).

Chinese: variant Romanization of the surnames 何 and 賀, see He 1 and 2.