The following, from the ENL, gives a bit of history regarding Rantem, along with information how the community obtained such a strange (at least strange to the ear) name:

An abandoned community located at the bottom of Trinity Bay, Rantem was for many years the landing point of the telegraph cable across Trinity Bay from Heart's Content.

In later years only a single telegraph company employee lived there, the remainder of the community consisting of railway employees and their families at Rantem Station, several miles inland.

Seary speculates that the name of the community (like that of Random Island) may be traced to an old expression "on the randans", referring to a long-past riotous night of revelry or to unruly seas.

A few families also fished out of Rantem, but it is unlikely that there were ever more than one or two of these. The community first appears in the Census in 1869, with a population of 12. It is likely that this number included John Hollett and family, by tradition the first settlers, who crossed over to Rantem from the Placentia Bay side of the Isthmus of Avalon.

Subsequently the majority of the inhabitants of Rantem bore the family names Hollett or Warren (a family name of nearby Chance Cove).

A number of other families were recorded there briefly employees of the telegraph company or of the railway after the 1890s. There were 20 to 30 people recorded at Rantem in most Census years, a number which likely includes residents of both the station and the cove.

By the 1940s there were no people living at the cove, and Rantem Station was in turn abandoned in the 1960s, when Canadian National Railways changed its policy of having repair crews resident on each section.

Used with permission from "Uncovering the Origin of 1001 Unique Place Names in Newfoundland and Labrador" 2021 Jennifer Leigh Hill

Address of this page: http://nl.ruralroutes.com/Rantem