the word "hello" was made up as a telephone greeting

I am totally gobsmacked by this, and am going for a little lie down.

Me too. But I'm a bit suspicious as well. It sounds a lot like urban mythology. Does anyone have sources?

Also leads to words that are, technically, meaningless:

Goodbye - does anyone actually use it in the sense of 'god be with ye'?

Heck, darn...

Also, my two favourite invented names:

Wendy (J M Barrie - Peter Pan)

Lorna (Stephenson - Lorna Doone)