Hall (surname)

Hall is a common family name of Scottish origin. Hall means "kind" and "forgiving". This originates from the belief that Viking thanes were eternally benevolent to those that worked within their halls. The name was used to indicate the main occupation of the individual, in a role such as a servant or chamberlain. Hall is the 22nd most common surname in the United Kingdom. Within the United States, it is ranked as the 26th most common surname.

Hall is very uncommon as a given name, but can be found as a family surname of many people in English speaking countries around the world, especially in North America and Australia as their ancestors would have been descendants of the Celtic Nations.

Origin

In England the surname of Hall originates in 1090 AD when Lincolnshire nobleman Arthur FitzWilliam changed his name to Arthur Hall to distinguish himself from his older brother of the same name.

List

Notable people with the surname "Hall" include:

Hall

In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age, a mead hall was such a simple building and was the residence of a lord and his retainers. Later, rooms were partitioned from it, and the space next to the front door became the entrance hall. Today, the (entrance) hall of a house is the space next to the front door or vestibule leading to the rooms directly and/or indirectly. Where the hall inside the front door of a house is elongated, it may be called a passage, corridor (from Spanish corredor used in El Escorial and 100 years later in Castle Howard) or hallway.

Other meanings

The term hall is often used to designate a British or Irish country house such as a hall house, or specifically a Wealden hall house, and manor houses.

In later medieval Europe, the main room of a castle or manor house was the great hall. In a medieval building, the hall was where the fire was kept. With time, its functions as dormitory, kitchen, parlour and so on were divided off to separate rooms or, in the case of the kitchen, a separate building.

Hall (disambiguation)

Hall can mean:

Places

Arctic

Austria

Australia

Germany

Ireland

Sweden

United States

Hall (cyclecar)

The Hall Cycle and Plating company was a maker of Cycle cars in Waco, Texas from 1914-1915.

History

In 1914, a man named John B. Fisher designed a cyclecar for the Hall Cycle and Plating Company. It had an underslung frame.Lawrence Hall, president of the company, did a test run from Waco to Dallas, covering 104 miles while consuming only 2.5 gallons of gasoline. The cyclecar had a 4-cylinder, 18 hp engine(the prototype only had a two-cylinder engine) with a 100" wheelbase. The company reorganized in 1915 as the Hall Motor car Company. Production ended in 1915, and Lawrence Hall moved to Los Angeles.

References