 Nothing is known of Manuel's early life. From the fact that he was militarily active in 978, and given that he was able to have children as late as ca. 1015, a date of birth of ca. 955 / 960 has been suggested and generally accepted by modern scholars. His parents' identity is obscure: as Manuel's own firstborn son was named Isaac (Isaakios), the Greek scholar Konstantinos Varzos considered it likely that his father had the same name, since according to Greek custom the eldest male child is named after its paternal grandfather. Nothing is known otherwise about his life and career. According to Varzos, Manuel inherited his surname of "Komnenos" from his father, while his equally obscure mother was an unnamed lady of the Erotikos family, possibly related to the 11th-century rebel Theophilos Erotikos. The French scholar Jean-Claude Cheynet, on the other hand, proposed that Manuel was a member of the Erotikos family, and that he was the first to have changed the surname to Komnenos. Modern scholarship commonly accepts Michael Psellos' comment that the family originated from the village of Komne in Thrace. Varzos also considers Manuel a brother of the protospatharios Nikephoros Komnenos, who was named governor of the Armenian region of Vaspurakan soon after its annexation in 1021, but although possible, such a relationship cannot be proven.
