The main thesis of this paper is that some of the most important ideas and symbolic devices that made Russell's theory of descriptions possible were already present in writings by Frege and especially Peano that Russell knew well. The paper contains a detailed comparison between the relevant parts of Russell's theory--including manuscripts recently published--and some of Frege and Peano's insights, as well as a discussion of numerous possible objections that could be posed to the main claim. Even if Russell was (...) not actually influenced by those insights, the parallelism is close enough to be worth analyzing, especially in the case of Peano, whose writings are not very well known. (shrink)