Only people who have never seen a "butter knife" call place knives butter knives...they are to cut your meat or asparagus or anything else.

A butter knife might be one of two uses. First, a butter knife is a special design to use with the butter plate. The other style of butter knife is for use at each place setting to butter a roll or piece of bread. Both of these knife styles are much smaller and duller than the knife used to cut one's meat or whatever, and shaped differently too.

Yeah....we know that....but the question was"When did people start calling a place knife a butter knife".?

To be honest, I've never heard anyone here call a place knife a butter knife.

I've not heard -- or read -- anyone here calling it that, but have heard a lot of people a generation or more younger than I do so: including my daughter. (Of course she's also gone against what she was brought up with of calling the mid-day meal dinner and the evening meal supper. For her, it's always lunch and dinner. I confess to getting my hackles up hearing her call a meal I've spent hours on "lunch"! To me, the main meal of the day is dinner, no matter what the time.)

I think my mother called them "butter knives" to differentiate them from steak knives when telling kids what to put on the table. She absolutely knows the difference and sets the table properly. We were very informal and I suspect we only had knives on the table when there was something to cut or something to butter. Hence butter and steak knives.

Do mean you never cut anything with your place knife? What did you use it for?
We always set a table with knife, fork and spoon....soup spoon if there is soup and salad fork if there is a green salad and a steak knife for steak or a chop.