Rank
A surname with several possible roots, most likely from a nickname for a person’s social rank or status, or from a place-name element meaning ridge or row.
The #9,716 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 92,466 Americans shares it.
Etymology
Rank is an old word that could point in more than one direction, so the surname is not certain in origin. In English it may come from Middle English rank, meaning a row, line, or a social standing/status, making it either a topographic name or a nickname for someone of a particular rank. In some cases it may also be linked to Germanic personal names or words, but the English explanations are the most plausible for the surname as used in Britain.
History
The surname is uncommon, and the historical evidence is thin compared with more frequent names built from rank titles such as Thane or Vavasour. Because the word rank was used widely in medieval English, different families may have acquired the name independently. Modern bearers in the US are relatively few, which is consistent with a surname that has several small, unrelated origins rather than one large family line.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
The same spelling can look status-related in one family and landscape-related in another, which is why short surnames like Rank often have more than one possible origin.
From the historical record
“note represented his mature opinion. "Surnames," he says, "grew out of descriptive appellations, and the date at which they originated varied according to the locality and the person's rank in life. In the South we find them at the beginning of the twelfth century. In the Northern counties they were not universal…”
— Surnames of the United Kingdom: a concise etymological dictionary (2 vols in 1)Notable people named Rank
- Otto Rank (1884–1939)
Sourced from Wikidata; linked to their Wikipedia page.