Scottish diminutive of Randolph, from Germanic elements meaning 'shield' and 'edge,' a medieval pet form.
Rankin is a Scottish and Northern English surname used increasingly as a given name, built on the medieval diminutive of Rand or Randolph — with the suffix *-kin*, a Low German and Dutch diminutive particle that entered Middle English and became productive in forming pet names: Wilkin from Will, Tomkin from Tom, Rankin from Rand. This *-kin* construction was particularly beloved in the medieval period and survives in surnames across the British Isles, each one a fossilized term of affection for a long-ago ancestor. In Scotland, Rankin has deep clan associations.
The name appears in historical records of Ayrshire and Lanarkshire, and the Rankin family appears in the margins of several significant Scottish historical moments. The name gained literary prominence through Ian Rankin, the Scottish crime novelist whose Inspector Rebus series — set in the grey, whisky-soaked closes of Edinburgh — became one of the defining works of Nordic noir's British cousin, Tartan noir. Rankin's Rebus novels are as much portraits of Scotland's conflicted national psyche as they are detective stories, and the author's surname as a given name carries some of that cool, canny, northern gravitas.
In the United States, Rankin is associated with Jeannette Rankin of Montana, who in 1916 became the first woman elected to the United States Congress — four years before women nationally could vote — and remains the only member of Congress to have voted against entry into both World Wars. Her moral courage gives the name a powerful American historical resonance. As a given name today, Rankin has the appealing quality of many Scottish surnames-as-firstnames: rooted, distinctive, and carrying quiet northern dignity.