The tablets were written in cuneiform, a Sumerian script that evolved from pictographs. While pictographs were rudimentary line drawings consisting of shapes imprinted into clay using a fine-pointed tool, cuneiform was a more complex script that emerged around 3200 BCE when a wedge-shaped reed stylus replaced the pointed tool. Instead of pictures, a variety of angular shapes could be made with the stylus, representing words, sounds, and syllables. 

Cuneiform tablets were often used for bureaucratic records, and historians believe that Kushim was likely an accountant or government official. On the Uruk tablet, now known as MS 1717, an unusual combination of two symbols appear: the cuneiform symbols for the sounds “Ku” and “Sim.” Both sounds are known to scholars, but there is no known cuneiform word that corresponds to the combination of the two sounds. That fact, combined with the positioning of the symbols at the end of a sentence, suggests that the cuneiform “Ku-Sim” is the name of the individual responsible for the transaction recorded.

The Schøyen Collection in Oslo, where some of the Uruk tablets are housed, displays a translation of one of the transactions: “Beer production: 134,813 litres of barley to be delivered over 3 years (37 months) to the government official Kushim responsible for the brewery at the Inanna Temple in Uruk.” The MS 1717 tablet is also notable for another reason: Its inscriptions are the first known depiction of an industrial process.

Can we be certain that Kushim was truly someone’s name, though? While there is room for argument that Kushim may simply be a job title, there is additional evidence on the tablet in support of it being a name. The word “Sanga” appears in the text immediately preceding Kushim, which is a word known to historians as a Mesopotamian job title. This makes it unlikely that Kushim is a title, as it would be redundant in context.

It’s worth noting that historians do not consider Kushim to be the first-ever given name, but rather a contender for the oldest given name that exists on record — tracking the earliest human history doesn’t tend to yield simple and definitive answers. To that end, there are a few other possible oldest names, a few of which appear on a tablet discovered in the ancient Sumerian city of Shuruppak (in modern-day Iraq). The Shuruppak tablet reads, “Two slaves held by Gal-sal” and then goes on to name them: “En-pap X and Sukkalgir.” Historians believe this artifact is likely one or two generations more recent than MS 1717, but in the context of thousands of years of antiquity, a timeframe of a few decades is difficult to prove with certainty. Another possible oldest name is the ancient Egyptian ruler Iry-Hor, who is thought to have lived contemporaneously to Kushim, Gal-sal, En-pap X, and Sukkalgir. 

As for today, is there anywhere in the world where the name Kushim is still used? According to the demographics site Forebears, approximately 76 people currently have that name. It’s most common in Russia, but also appears in Uzbekistan. It’s the 2,168,711th most popular name in the world.

The Norman Conquest Helped Popularize Surnames

While the use of last names was established in some ancient societies, surnames weren’t widely used in Europe before the Middle Ages. The earliest recorded example of a European surname is the Irish Ó Cléirigh (O’Clery or O’Cleary in English), meaning “descendant of the clerk,” recorded in County Galway, Ireland, in 916 CE. Before the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, Anglo-Saxon surnames were inconsistently used and were specific to an individual. It wasn’t until the Norman barons introduced their system of fixed and hereditary surnames that the practice began to take hold and spread throughout the European continent.

The use of last names was inconsistent in the beginning, as the names were often changed or dropped altogether over time. Surnames could also have a wide variety of spelling variations due to the fact that many people couldn’t read or write, so names were spelled phonetically, or even abbreviated, for official records. Despite the lack of a formal naming system, the use of last names became a practical necessity for distinguishing among people as cities developed and populations expanded.

Early on, surnames were primarily used by the European aristocracy and land-owning class. By the 15th century, however, hereditary surnames were widely used in England and parts of Scotland. Women traditionally took their husband’s last name and, under King Henry VII, children’s names were also recorded under their father’s last name. The introduction of parish records in the 16th century and subsequent civil registration systems helped standardize the use and spellings of surnames. For instance, there were more than 80 different spelling variations of William Shakespeare’s surname, including Shackspeare, Shagspere, and Shaxberd. Accurate and consistent documentation helped in property transactions, tax collection, and other legal matters.

Surnames Also Developed From Occupation and Geography

As the practice became popular in medieval Europe, choosing a surname took different forms. The earliest last names were typically related to a person’s occupation, physical characteristics, geographic location, or paternal lineage. Occupational surnames, such as Baker or Carpenter, reflected a person’s profession and helped indicate their trade skills. A surname could also be derived from a nickname that referenced a personal trait or reflected how someone was seen in their community, such as Armstrong, indicating physical strength, Brown, referring to someone with brown hair or skin, or Young, used to distinguish between a father and son.

Geographic names, known as locative or toponymic surnames, were connected to the location where a person was born or lived. These place names were often chosen in relation to a nearby city, such as Warwick or York, or based on local landmarks. For instance, the name Churchill could mean a person lived near a church on a hill, while Southgate could refer to someone who lived near the southern gate of a town.

Patronymic family names were derived from the name of a father or male ancestor and often used a prefix or suffix to indicate a person’s lineage. For example, the suffix “-son” in the English name Johnson and the prefix “Mac-” in the Scottish name MacGregor mean “the son of John” and “the son of Gregor,” respectively. Similarly, the prefix “O’-” in the Irish name O’Grady means “descendant of Grady.” 

Smith, which is the most common surname not only in the U.S. but in the entire English-speaking world, derived from an Old English word meaning “to smite or hit,” and was used by blacksmiths. There are just a few hundred professional blacksmiths in the United States today, but more than 2.3 million people still carry the last name Smith.

“Red Tape” Became a Negative Term for Bureaucracy

Though a regal red binding once signified order and organization, the term “red tape” eventually took on a derogatory connotation, meaning an overly complicated process of rules and paperwork. This meaning of the term has been around for almost 200 years. One of the earliest known uses is found in the 1850 work Latter Day Pamphlets by Scottish author Thomas Carlyle. He wrote, “From all corners of the wide British Dominion there rises one complaint against the ineffectuality of what are nicknamed our ‘red-tape’ establishments, our Government Offices, Colonial Office, Foreign Office and the others.”

Despite the growing negative association, the practice of using red tape to bind important documents was widespread by the end of the American Civil War. According to the National Archives Foundation in Washington, D.C., Americans first used the term “red tape” in reference to bureaucracy because of how difficult it was for Civil War veterans to obtain their tape-bound records in order to file pension claims. While the term “red tape” predates the Civil War era, it became an increasingly popular phrase in English through the 19th and 20th centuries.

Red Tape Bindings Have Found a New Life as Mementos

Though we still refer to “cutting through the red tape” today, the tradition of binding documents with colorful cloth has been replaced by other methods, including digitizing original records. Some archivists still use twill tape to bind documents, but they opt for undyed tape rather than red, because the red ink can fade or rub off onto the paper. However, red ribbon binding remained in use for a surprisingly long time — until the 1980s — and hundreds of miles of red tape have been used to bind billions of historic documents.

For more than two decades, the National Archives has been shifting the use of red tape from its historic files to its gift shop. The idea to monetize this bit of governmental history was conceived in the 1990s by a volunteer who was removing the red bindings from Civil War documents so they could be transferred to microfilm. In 1997, the first snippets of red tape were sold in the National Archives gift shop for $5. Today, those bits of faded fabric have been incorporated into a wide range of jewelry and mementos for tourists who want to own a piece of bureaucratic history.

The origins of "X" being associated with a kiss can be traced back to the Middle Ages. In an era when literacy rates were low and formal education was a rare privilege, people who couldn’t write would sign documents with an "X" instead of their name. When people signed with an "X," it wasn't merely a mark; it was a symbol that carried the weight of an oath. To validate their intentions and their "signature," people were also known to kiss the "X." 

How the letter "X" transitioned from a kiss in the name of sincerity to a kiss of romance or affection isn’t clear. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the earliest known use of that meaning to a 1763 letter by British naturalist Gilbert White. In the letter, White signs off, "I am, with many a xxxxxxx and many a Pater noster and Ave Maria, Gil White." This interpretation, however, has been challenged: Stephen Goranson, a researcher at Duke University, instead suggests that the "X" likely represented blessings, not kisses, given its use alongside religious phrases such as "Ave Maria." Indeed, an "X" was historically used as a symbol of the Christian cross. "X" is also the first letter in the Greek word for Christ, Χριστός — hence the well-known abbreviation for Christmas, "Xmas." 

Some linguists suggest an 1894 letter from Winston Churchill to his mother demonstrated a pioneering use of the letter "X" as a symbol for a kiss. The letter reads, “Please excuse bad writing as I am in an awful hurry. (Many kisses.) xxx WSC.” But in additional research, Goranson uncovered other uses of "X" as a symbol for a kiss as early as 1880. An even earlier example dates back to 1878. In Florence Montgomery's novel Seaforth, she describes letters ending with “the inevitable row of kisses; sometimes expressed by x x x x x, and sometimes by o o o o o.” Marcel Danesi, a professor of linguistic anthropology and author of The History of the Kiss!: The Birth of Popular Culture, suggested the association began earlier. He wrote that as the Renaissance era saw an increase of secularism, and with the 18th-century rise of the concept of romantic love, the symbolic "X" gradually expanded beyond its initial utilitarian function to become a gesture of affection.

An easier explanation could simply be the shape of the letter — that it looks like a pair of puckered lips. A linguistic interpretation, meanwhile, might suggest that the use of "X" for a kiss is rooted in its phonetic resemblance to the sound of the word “kiss,” mainly the soft, percussive "ks" sound made when pronouncing "X." The letter is still often written on its own as a sign-off; sometimes a double “XX” will do, and, of course, "X" frequently gets paired with an "O." (Even less is known about the origin of "O" as a symbol for a hug. It’s been suggested that the letter simply looks like a pair of arms wrapped around someone else; as with "X," however, there are other theories as well.)

While the exact reason may never be clear, using an "X" for a personal touch has certainly permeated global communications, and has been perpetuated and reinforced through the rise of digital messaging. Today, the letter "X" is ingrained as a shorthand for affection, and despite its ambiguity, it remains a constant symbol in our ever-evolving language.

The tradition of saying “God bless you” after a sneeze is often attributed to Pope Gregory I, also known as Pope Gregory the Great, in the sixth century. He supposedly bestowed such blessings during a bubonic plague outbreak, as it was thought that sneezing signaled imminent death from the disease. But the social custom of verbally acknowledging a sneeze predates Pope Gregory by at least several hundred years. In his 77 CE work Natural History, Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder mentioned the custom of offering a salutation after someone sneezes. “Why is it that we salute a person when he sneezes,” he pondered, “an observance which Tiberius Caesar, they say, the most unsociable of men, as we all know, used to exact, when riding in his chariot even?” The fact that Pliny didn’t know the meaning of the tradition suggests it had been around long enough for its origins to be lost.

Pliny may not have had the answer, but others have offered explanations for why a sneeze garners a blessing. One common theory stems from the ancient beliefs that sneezing made it possible for evil spirits to enter the body, or could momentarily expel the soul from the body, leaving it vulnerable to evil spirits or illnesses. People also used to believe that a person’s heart stopped during a sneeze. In all cases, saying “God bless you” was a prayer to God to safeguard the sneezer’s soul and protect them (and anyone in their proximity) from harm.

Sneeze Responses Around the World

Today, saying “bless you” remains the typical response to a sneeze in the U.S. and the U.K., as well as other English-speaking parts of the world (generally due to colonization). But other countries and cultures have different customary responses. Most typical responses in European countries translate as some version of the word “health,” such as “salud” in Spanish-speaking countries, “salute” in Italy, and “gesundheit” in German-speaking regions. (“Gesundheit” is also popular in the U.S., thanks to the influx of German immigrants in the early 20th century.) In Latin American cultures, the first sneeze will garner the usual response of “salud,” while a second and third sneeze will earn the sneezer wishes of “dinero” (money) and “amor” (love). On the other hand, sneezing usually elicits no response at all in most of East Asia, unless it’s excessive, in which case the typical response is to inquire after someone’s health.

Thousands of French Words

This period of linguistic amalgamation gave rise to the language known as Middle English. From around 1250 to 1400, a distinct new dialect began to take shape in England. Writing styles were heavily influenced by the French (or Latin) writing conventions; pronunciations shifted, and a substantial influx of French vocabulary cemented itself into the English language. It’s estimated that, during Norman rule, some 10,000 French words were adopted into English; about three-fourths of them are still used today. Given the English language is always changing and evolving, there is no real consensus for how many English words exist, but some linguists would estimate around 1 million words, roughly 30% or more of which come from French. The French influence remains so pervasive, it’s estimated that English speakers without any French language education may already know around 15,000 French words.

What French Words Are Still Used in English?

The influence of the French language on the development of modern English is still strongly felt. Words used today that originated with the Norman Conquest range from everyday terms used in law (“justice,” “attorney,” “judge”), government (“regime,” “parliament”), and the arts (“ballet,” “oeuvre”), to food (“beef,” “cuisine”) and fashion (“petite,” “chic”). Of course, given the Normans’ prestige, it’s no surprise that words such as “duke,” “countess,” “throne,” and, on the other end of the status spectrum, even “servant” are also of French origin.

French has influenced more than just the modern English vocabulary, however. It also changed pronunciation in many ways — such as not pronouncing a final unaccented “e” on a word, as well as how “g” now sounds in words such as “mirage.” Grammar and spelling were impacted, too: For instance, titles such as “consul general” retained the French manner of following a noun with the adjective, while words such as “queen” and “should” were spelled as “cwen” and “scolde” in Old English, until the French influence changed the language landscape forever.

England’s Latin, Old French, and Middle English trilingualism remained common until around the 15th century, when London and its dialect gained visibility in literary works from the likes of William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer. It ushered in a new phase of the language known as Early Modern English, which is closely related to the English we know today.

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