The RANKIN surname in the USA

Frequency Comparisons
	Total	Rank	Frequency %	Per million people
United States
United States (Current snapshot)	27,989	1148	0.01	104
United States (1880 census)	8,387	714	0.017	168
Change since 1880	+19602	-434	-0.007	-64
Other Countries
Australia	2,560	621	0.016	157
United Kingdom	6,776	930	0.015	148

Top States for RANKIN by Total
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Texas	2,379	1067	0.011	114
California	2,081	1562	0.006	61
Pennsylvania	1,936	642	0.016	158
Ohio	1,600	803	0.014	141
North Carolina	1,448	789	0.018	180
Top States for RANKIN by Frequency
State	Total	Rank in State	Frequency %	Per million people
Mississippi	856	500	0.030	301
Kentucky	832	707	0.021	206
Arkansas	550	626	0.021	206
Maine	246	1025	0.019	193
North Carolina	1,448	789	0.018	180

Notes

Total is the total number of people with that surname.
Rank is the position in the list of names ordered by total (eg, a rank of 1 means that it's the most common name, and a rank of 10 means it's the tenth most common, etc).
Frequency is the percentage of people with that surname.
Per million people is the number of people with that surname per million of the population.

'A figure of zero indicates that we don't have data for this name (usually because it's quite uncommon and our stats don't go down that far). It doesn't mean that there's no-one with that name at all!

For less common surnames, the figures get progressively less reliable the fewer holders of that name there are. This data is aggregated from several public lists, and some stats are interpolated from known values. The margin of error is well over 100% at the rarest end of the table!

For less common surnames, the frequency and "per million" values may be 0 even though there are people with that name. That's because they represent less than one in a million of the population, which ends up as 0 after rounding.

It's possible for a surname to gain in rank and/or total while being less common per million people (or vice versa) as there are now more surnames in the USA as a result of immigration. In mathematical terms, the tail has got longer, with a far larger number of less common surnames.

Figures for top states show firstly the states where most people called RANKIN live. This obviously tends to be biased towards the most populous states. The second set of figures show where people called RANKIN represent the biggest proportion of the population. So, in this case, there are more people called RANKIN in Texas than any other state, but you are more likely to find a RANKIN by picking someone at random in Mississippi than anywhere else.

Classification and Origin of RANKIN

Region of origin: British Isles

Country of origin: Scotland

Language of origin: Gaelic

Ethnic origin: Celtic

Religious origin: Christian

Name derivation: Diminutive

Data for religion and/or language relates to the culture in which the RANKIN surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the language spoken, or religion practised, by the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Data for ethnic origin relates to the region and country in which the RANKIN surname originated. It does not necessarily have any correlation with the ethnicity of the majority of current American citizens with that name.

Ethnic distribution of RANKIN in the USA

Classification	Total	Percent
White (Hispanic)	484	1.73
Mixed Race	395	1.41
Asian/Pacific	134	0.48
Native American/Alaskan	126	0.45
White (Caucasian)	22,604	80.76
Black/African American	4,246	15.17

Ethnic distribution data shows the number and percentage of people with the RANKIN surname who reported their ethnic background as being in these broad categories in the most recent national census.

Meaning of RANKIN in historical publications

This name may be derived from the Danish Rank, right, upright, erect. If the name is Gaelic, it would come from Roinn, a promontory, share, or division, and Ceann, head; the head of the promontory, a name of place. Ranken, in the Dutch, signifies pranks, tricks.

Arthur, William (1857) An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names. New York: Sheldon, Blakeman. Public Domain.

RANKIN. I always considered this a diminutive of Randolf (see Hankin) ; but there is a tradition of descent from one John, son of a knight called Jacob de Rankine, burgomaster of Ghent, who married a daughter of the head of the house of Keith, and became progenitor of the Rankines, Ranking, Rankens, Rankings, and Rangkings of Scotland, who are i-ather numerous in the West, and on the border. The tradition is, however, dateless and vague. Inf. M. H. Rankin, Esq.

Lower, Mark A (1860) Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom. London: J.R. Smith. Public Domain.

Similar names to RANKIN

The following names have similar spellings or pronunciations as RANKIN.

This does not necessarily imply a direct relationship between the names, but may indicate names that could be mistaken for this one when written down or misheard.