[1][3] The specific name halli honors Frank Gregory Hall, an American specialist on the effects of high altitudes on human body[4] and collector of the type series.

[1] In 2018, the species was claimed to have been rediscovered by Fibla et al., with their phylogenetic study reassigning the southernmost populations of Telmatobius chusmisensis to T.

[7] In 2020, Cuevas et al. claimed to have discovered a Telmatobius halli in a tiny hot spring oasis near Ollagüe in the Atacama Desert.

[9] However, Correa (2021) refuted both findings, with both frog populations being distinct taxa from one another and being related to other Telmatobius species, not T. halli.

Correa also identified the true type locality of the species as being at Miño, an abandoned mining camp located near the source of the Loa River, where no Telmatobius populations had been described since the original specimens.

In late 2020, an expedition to the type locality found a Telmatobius population, which was determined to be T. halli, thus marking the true rediscovery of the species.