The name "Borromean rings" comes from their use in the coat of arms of the aristocratic Borromeo family in Italy. The link itself is much older and has appeared in the form of the valknut on Norse image stones dating back to the 7th century.

The Borromean rings have been used in different contexts to indicate strength in unity, e.g. in religion or art. In particular, some have used the design to symbolize the Trinity. The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan famously found inspiration in the Borromean rings as a model for his topology of the human mind, with each ring representing a fundamental Lacanian component of reality (the "real", the "imaginary", and the "symbolic").

The Borromean rings were also the logo of Ballantine beer.

In 1997, biologists Chengde Mao and coworkers of New York University succeeded in constructing Borromean rings from DNA (Nature, vol 386, page 137, March 1997).

In 2003, chemist Fraser Stoddart and coworkers at UCLA utilised coordination chemistry to construct molecular Borromean rings in one step from 18 components. This work was published in Science 2004, 304, 1308-1312. Abstract