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Perhaps I'm among the last to have found this out, but it took me quite a while to understand why, in a signature, the name was preceeded by a הק׳. THe Ozar Rashei Tevot book has 31 different interpretations and this one is at position #28, meaning "hakatan." A good friend who obtained his Smicha in Czechoslovakia explained that in "that part of the world" people would humbly sign their letters, books, etc., as being "hakatan" הקטן even if they were gedolim.

My question is: When did this practice start and how widespread is it?

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Is it ה״ק or הק׳? I've more often seen the latter for הקטן, I think. – msh210♦ Jan 12 at 1:20
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I don't think I've ever seen ה"ק used this way, so I took the liberty of changing it to הק'. If that's not what you meant, please forgive me and change it back. – Dave Jan 12 at 2:13
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Wasn't there a tanna named Shemuel HaKatan? – Double AA Jan 12 at 2:44
@DoubleAA, that's following the name, not preceding it; and we don't know (or do we?) that he called himself that first, which is what this question's about. – msh210♦ Jan 12 at 3:05
Actually, in the hand-written letters I have seen, the ה and ק are scripted together, so הק׳ is probably a better way to have written it. That in itself took a while to unravel! Interestingly, I also saw it in a letter that one of my great uncles wrote to his brother, neither of whom were rabbis. – Madeleine Jan 12 at 15:12
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The first reference to someone being known as HaKatan is most likely Shmuel HaKatan - a Tanna who lived according to some towards the end of the second Bais HaMikdash. The Yerushalmi in Sotah Perek 9 Halacha 13 brings 2 reasons why he was known as HaKatan. One is because he acted humbly and the other is because he was smaller than Shmuel HaRamasi.

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See my and msh210's comments to the question above. – Double AA Jan 12 at 18:25
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