Thinking back through the mists of time, I'm fairly sure we were one of the first teams (if not the first team) to have an individual chant for each player.
We were quite creative up on The North Bank, and a bit of credit has to go to those on The Clock End for reciprocating and on occasion inventing some as well.
I'll start the series with Ian Wright.
The chant as you know it now was similar, but with a single "Wright", so sounded "Ian Wriiiiiiiiiiiiight" to start with, and it evolved quite by accident. For those that can remember terraces, The North Bank was very vocal, and we tended to split ourselves top, middle and lower (bottom)
Anyhow, the idea was that the top would start the chant, the middle would start the chant as the top went to "Wright" and so on. But it all went completely wrong, and sounded more as it does now. The Clock End chanted it back as it now sounds, and so that one was born.
Palace may well have used it previously, they claim so, but it wasn't one I'd ever heard, nor those of us up the top of The North Bank who created the majority of the chants had either.