This is a very rare English surname. We cannot really offer any explanation for its existence, unless either it originates from a now "lost" medieval village called Reed Bank or similar, or it is topographical for somebody who lived by a reed bank, which is quite logical. What is not quite so logical is that in the famous International Genealogical Index this surname appears immediately below Riband. This is one of the dialectal surname forms of the surname Ribbon, given originally to a ribbon merchant, and just possibly Rebanks could be yet another variation. A search through the known gazetters of the British Isles for the past three centuries has failed to reveal any place of the name unless it be the village of Reed in Suffolk, or the River Reed in Northumberland. What we can say is that there is an early recording of Charles Rebanks and his wife Margaret at the church of St Giles Crippleagte in the city of London, on September 19th 1717. On this date their daughter Mary was christened, but thereafter, the registers of London are totally silent as to what happened to this family.

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