Fact Check: The inventor’s girlfriend’s name was Hello, so it is said first on the phone!

An infographic is going viral on social media in which telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell and his wife Mabel Gardiner Hubbard can be seen.

In the viral graphical image, it is written that “YOU ALWAYS SAY HELLO WHEN ANSWERING THE PHONE. WHY?”

“A nice information: When you lift the phone you say Hello..? Do you know what is the Real meaning of Hello..? It is the name of a Girl..! YES & Do U know who is that girl..? “Margaret Hello” She was the girlfriend of Graham Bell who invented the telephone.. Graham Bell’s first word on his phone after his invention was “Hello”. That practice of starting the call with Hello still continues. One can forget the name of Graham Bell But not his girlfriend, that is Love.! 4:58 AM.”

fact check

To know the truth of the viral claim, the DFRAC team first did a reverse image search on the part of the image on Google. We found this picture on the Wikimedia page. It stars Alexander Graham Bell and his wife Mabel Gardiner Hubbard.

Then the team did a reverse image search of the entire picture. We got the title, “Is ‘Hello’ the Surname of Alexander Graham Bell’s Girlfriend?” (Found in a blog published under the surname ‘Hello’ for Alexander Graham Bell’s girlfriend?)

This blog post states that “This story about the surname of Alexander Graham Bell’s girlfriend Margaret Hello is false and nothing more. The lady in this photo purported to be ‘Margaret Hello’ was, in fact, Mabel Gardiner Hubbard who in 1876 was engaged to him; a woman whom he married the following year and who remained his wife until he died in 1922.”

This blog further quoted Wired.com as saying that Alexander Graham Bell made the first call on the telephone to his assistant in the next room and the first sentence he uttered is, “Mr. Watson, come here – I want to see you.” Watson, come here – I want to meet you.”

On the other hand, the information that comes up when looking up hello in the dictionary, according to dictionary.com, is something like this, “While the use of the term hello dates back earlier, it isn’t recorded with this exact spelling until the 1800s. Hello is considered a variant of a number of other similar words—like hello, holla, and hollo—that were used to hail and shout to gain attention and recorded prior to the 1800s. “

Further mentioned by dictionary.com,  “When the telephone was invented, Alexander Graham Bell wanted people to use the word ahoy as a greeting. Supposedly his rival Thomas Edison suggested hello, while Bell stubbornly clung to ahoy, and well—you know which one stuck around. (Interesting trivia: hello-girls was the name for the central telephone exchange operators.)”

This is a popular hoax on the internet. Alexander Graham Bell never actually used the word “hello”. The first call he made was to his assistant who was in the next room and he said “Come here. I want to see you.”

According to quora.com the word ‘hello’ actually comes from hola which means to stop and pay attention. Alexander Bell preferred to use ‘ahoi’ like ships in those days, which incidentally was misheard by Edison.

conclusion

This fact check by DFRAC makes it clear that the word ‘hello’ is not the surname of the girlfriend of Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone. A year after the invention of the telephone, scientist Alexander Graham Bell married Nemabel Gardiner Hubbard. Furthermore, he made the first call to his assistant and the first sentence was, Come here, I want to meet you.

Claim: The inventor’s girlfriend’s name was Hello, so say hello first on the phone!

Claimant: Social Media Users

Conclusion: Misleading