Stumbled upon this article, written by Robert Krulwich and presented on nationalgeographic.com the other day regarding the following:

Who’s the first person in history whose name we know?

Historians and archaeologists have, of course, worked hard to find and document lost human history.

Their work, to me, is fascinating and surprising and I have to admit this article had high levels of both.

Honestly, I never considered the idea of who is the first person in history whose name we actually know, and this article offers the answer to that question as well as several other very early historical names.

I don’t want to give away the information as I truly believe the article is worth reading, but not only the names presented are interesting, but so too are their stations in life.

That much I’ll give away:  The name was found on this tablet which was, in turn, found in Iraq:

The tablet describes a shipment of barley and the first person in history whose name we know acknowledges receipt of this shipment and “signs” for it on the tablet.  Get this: The first person in history whose name we know was essentially…an accountant.

The article goes on to describe the second, third, and fourth oldest names ever found, also on a tablet found in Iraq.  The people named on this second tablet are a slave owner and the names of his/her two slaves.

But enough of me offering a Cliff’s Notes version of the article.  Click on the link and read what the oldest known, as well as the second, third, and fourth oldest names, known to us!