Hall
Masculine · “Old English heall”
An Anglo-Saxon hall was the whole house. Everyone ate, drank, argued and slept in one room with a hearth in the middle, and Beowulf is set in one. Private rooms arrived with the Normans, which is why chamber and parlour are French words and hall is English.
How old is the name Hall?
Hall first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Hall alive today was born around 1931, making them about 94 years old. About 300 people named Hall are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Hall most popular?
Hall peaked in 1881, reaching #781 nationally. Today it ranks #9714, 8,933 places below that high. See the whole 1881 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From heall to Hall
The story of Hall
The great hall was the building, not a passage in it. It held the household, the fire, the tables and the sleeping benches, and status was expressed by where a person sat in relation to the lord. Heorot in Beowulf is such a hall and the poem's action turns on who can occupy it at night. Privacy as a domestic arrangement came later and came with French vocabulary: a chamber, from camera, a room; a parlour, from parler, a room for speaking; a solar, an upper private room. By the fourteenth century the lord had withdrawn from the hall to eat in the chamber, a change Langland complains about in Piers Plowman as a decline in hospitality. The English word survives attached to the biggest room in a building, and in America shrank further to mean a corridor.
Meaning
Old English heall, a large room
Hall is an English surname given to someone who lived or worked at a hall, meaning the principal house of a manor. The word is Old English heall, from a root meaning to cover or conceal, related to hell and to hull. The American peak of the given name is 1881.
How the name formed
- heall
- Hall
Related forms: Halle · Halle
Pronouncing Hall
HAWL
One syllable. It is said exactly like the common noun, and is a homophone of haul for most American speakers.
Nicknames for Hall
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1881
- Most boys named
- 191833 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #781reached in 1881
- Change vs 2023
- −22.2%7 in 2025, from 9
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Hall in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Halle in English — spelling variant
- Halle in German — related form
Halls among us
people named Hall are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 244,011 born in 2025 was named Hall
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Hall
- #9714
- Hall on the 2025 chart
- #883
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Hall went to 7 boys in 2025, but Hal is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 45, which makes it the 883rd most-given boys’ name of the year — 8,831 places above the chart.
- Hal38
- Hall7
About 1 boy in 37,957 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 244,011 for Hall itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Hall sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Hall beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Hall in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable with no possible mispronunciation.
- Hal works as a short form and is a traditional name.
- It is a genuine English surname with a clear meaning.
- It is an everyday English word.
- It reads clearly as a surname.
- The 1881 peak places it deep in the nineteenth century.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Hall to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Hall? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Hall
Masculine · #9714 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Halls are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 300 people named Hall are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Hall?
- Hall is one of 2 recorded spellings. Hal is the more common one — 38 births in 2025 against 7 for Hall.
- How popular is the name Hall in 2025?
- Hall ranks #9714 among US boy names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Hall?
- About 1 in every 244,011 US boys born in 2025 was named Hall — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Hall with classmates?
- Hall will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Hall
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vern#9714 · Abrahm#9714 · Sid#9714 · Hartwell#9714 · Kwan#9714 · Adrean#9714 · Chancey#9714 · Bob#9714
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Hall? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Hall and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle