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English: topographic name for someone who lived in a (usually remote) nook or corner of land from Old English and Middle English hale dative of h(e)alh ‘nook hollow’ or a habitational name from a place so named such as Hale in Cheshire Hampshire Lancashire Lincolnshire Holme Hale (Norfolk) Hale Street (Kent) and Haile (Cumberland). In northern England the word often has a specialized meaning denoting a piece of flat alluvial land by the side of a river typically one deposited in a bend. See Haugh . In southeastern England it often referred to a patch of dry land in a fen. In some cases the surname may be a habitational name from any of several places in England named with this fossilized inflected form which would originally have been preceded by a preposition e.g. in the hale or at the hale. This surname is also established in south Wales. Irish: shortened Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Céile (see McHale ). Jewish (Ashkenazic): variant of Halle . Americanized form of Norwegian Hole .
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022