The story
* As an English and German surname, from hall + -er. * As a Alemannic German surname, variant of Halter, a noun meaning "shepherd, owner, holder." * Also as a German surname, variant of Heller. * As a Austrian German surname, from several placenames involving the element Hall meaning "salt," such as Halle in Saxony.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.