 In France, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Latin America, administrative usage is to put the surname before the first on official documents.While the use of given names to identify individuals is attested in the oldest historical records, the advent of surnames is a relatively recent phenomenon.A four-year study led by the University of the West of England, which concluded in 2016, analysed sources dating from the 11th to the 19th century to explain the origins of the surnames in the British Isles.