Have names been used since we have a record, or is there an era or civilization where people haven't used them? What were those proto-names based on? (i.e. what was their meaning apart from being used to identify people, if they had one?)

Sorry, we don't allow throughout history questions. These tend to produce threads which are collections of trivia, not the in-depth discussions about a particular topic we're looking for. If you have a specific question about a historical event or period or person, please feel free to re-compose your question and submit it again. Alternatively, questions of this type can be directed to more appropriate subreddits, such as /r/history or /r/askhistory.