Context menus first appeared in the Smalltalk environment on the Xerox Alto computer, where they were called pop-up menus; they were invented by Dan Ingalls in the mid-1970s.
Kontekstni izbornici prvi su se put pojavili u okružju Smalltalka na računalu Xerox Alto, gdje su bili zvani "iskočnim izbornicima" (eng. pop-up menus); izumio ih je Dan Ingalls sredinom 1970-ih.