As with many old English personal names such as "Alfgar" composed of the disparate elements "aelf", elf, and "gari", spear, double-barrelled surnames, (usually created following a marriage between two families), have no overall meaning, but the separate elements have their own meaning and derivation. In this instance, the "Hall" part of "Hallgalley" or "Hall-Galley", is of Anglo-Saxon origin, deriving from the old English pre 7th Century "heall", Old High German "halla", meaning a large house or manor, and was originally given either as an occupational name to someone employed at a manor, or as a locational name from towns named with this word, such as Hall in Lancashire and Halle in East Germany. The surname Galley derives from the medieval English "galye", a ship or barge, ultimately from the old French "galie", and was originally given as a metonymic occupational name to a sailor. One, Henry Galye, a witness was noted in the 1291 "Assize Court Rolls of Yorkshire". On January 29th 1543, Annes Hall and Cornelius Elmer were married in St. Mary Magdalene, Old Fish Street, London and on April 29th 1625, Adam Galley married Jone Watcliffe in St. Giles, London. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Warin de Halla, which was dated 1178, "The Pipe Rolls of Essex", during the reign of King Henry 11, "The Builder of Churches", 1154 - 1189. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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