diff --git a/CONTRIBUTORS b/CONTRIBUTORS
index 6c9f1460f85b5a4830d4ad285461718e50d8f3a4..7059c716cfed0d7b5d9692b9bf28b70f5c9cbdf4 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTORS
+++ b/CONTRIBUTORS
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
-Alphabetical list of everyone who ever committed to this repository
+Alphabetical list of surnames of everyone who ever committed to this repository.
+Auto-generated from tools/list_CONTRIBUTORS.
 
 Eric Bouchut <ebouchut@gmail.com>
 Dridi Boukelmoune <dridi.boukelmoune@gmail.com>
diff --git a/tools/list_CONTRIBUTORS b/tools/list_CONTRIBUTORS
index 351820564a77614b5b10f335d38cf5ba549d76fa..2954f583ab23df5fc286f7ee270d324f333b39df 100755
--- a/tools/list_CONTRIBUTORS
+++ b/tools/list_CONTRIBUTORS
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 #!/bin/sh
 
-echo 'Alphabetical list of everyone who ever committed to this repository
+echo 'Alphabetical list of surnames of everyone who ever committed to this repository.
+Auto-generated from tools/list_CONTRIBUTORS.
 '
 git shortlog -se --all | cut -f1 --complement | sort -u -k2