[4] The earliest known use of the Sa-Rê title occurs during the reign of king Djedefre, third ruler of 4th Dynasty and successor of Khufu.

Later, under king Djoser, the founder of the 3rd Dynasty, we find the first personal names of princes and high officials connected to Râ.

At this time however, the title of "Son of Ra", Sa-Rê, was only a mere emendation of the nswt-bity crest (meaning both "He of the Sedge and the Bee" and "King of Upper and Lower Egypt"), the traditional form for introducing the name of the ruler.

It is only from the later Middle Kingdom period (c. 2055–1650 BC) onwards that the mention "Sa-Rê" was placed, together with the niswt-bity title, before the cartouche containing the name of the king.

In the intervening time, king Neferirkare Kakai, the third ruler of 5th Dynasty (c. 2490–2345 BC), was the first who separated the nswt-bity and Sa-rê titles and turned them into two different, independent names, which are now called the prenomen and the nomen, respectively.

The reason for the confusion derives from differences between the royal names presented by the ancient Historian Manetho, who wrote an history of Egypt in the 3rd century BC, and the older Egyptian kinglists, such as the Abydos King List, the Saqqara Tablet and the Turin Canon, which date to the Ramesside period (c. 1292–1189 BC).