Origin of "Hi There"

So, can anyone help me on where "Hi There!" comes from and why it is that we say "there" along with this greeting?

Amuzing to me, someone I said this to thinks I was being rude for calling them "there"--saying to me, "My name isn't 'there.'

Thoughts?

From the archives:
"Hi" preceded "hello." The Oxford English Dictionary says "hi" is a "parallel form of HEY." The first recorded uses of these interjections in writing: "hi," the year 1475; "hey," 1225; "hello" (a variant of "hallo"), 1883.

HELLO, HOWDY, HI - ".or words to that effect, are used by most of us several times a day. 'How do you do?' (literally 'how is your health?'), 'good morning,' 'good afternoon,' and 'good evening' have been English greetings since the mid 15th century.Surprisingly enough, 'hello' didn't become a truly common greeting until the mid 1860s. It comes from 'holla!', stop! (French ho! + la, there); it had been used as a shout to attract attention, hail a coach, ferry, etc." Page 184. From I Hear America Talking: An Illustrated History of American Words and Phrases, by Stuart Berg Flexner, Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., New York, 1976.