diff --git a/spacy/_ml.py b/spacy/_ml.py
index 5cccabac1..60a0bbee0 100644
--- a/spacy/_ml.py
+++ b/spacy/_ml.py
@@ -279,18 +279,19 @@ class PrecomputableAffine(Model):
                 break
 
 
-def link_vectors_to_models(vocab):
+def link_vectors_to_models(vocab, skip_rank=False):
     vectors = vocab.vectors
     if vectors.name is None:
         vectors.name = VECTORS_KEY
         if vectors.data.size != 0:
             warnings.warn(Warnings.W020.format(shape=vectors.data.shape))
     ops = Model.ops
-    for word in vocab:
-        if word.orth in vectors.key2row:
-            word.rank = vectors.key2row[word.orth]
-        else:
-            word.rank = util.OOV_RANK
+    if not skip_rank:
+        for word in vocab:
+            if word.orth in vectors.key2row:
+                word.rank = vectors.key2row[word.orth]
+            else:
+                word.rank = util.OOV_RANK
     data = ops.asarray(vectors.data)
     # Set an entry here, so that vectors are accessed by StaticVectors
     # (unideal, I know)
diff --git a/spacy/language.py b/spacy/language.py
index e89f80f08..f23776def 100644
--- a/spacy/language.py
+++ b/spacy/language.py
@@ -1072,7 +1072,7 @@ def _fix_pretrained_vectors_name(nlp):
     else:
         raise ValueError(Errors.E092)
     if nlp.vocab.vectors.size != 0:
-        link_vectors_to_models(nlp.vocab)
+        link_vectors_to_models(nlp.vocab, skip_rank=True)
     for name, proc in nlp.pipeline:
         if not hasattr(proc, "cfg"):
             continue