diff --git a/api/next/51896.txt b/api/next/51896.txt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..d4ef14cfa2b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/api/next/51896.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+pkg unicode/utf16, func AppendRune([]uint16, int32) []uint16 #51896
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/src/unicode/utf16/utf16.go b/src/unicode/utf16/utf16.go
index 1a881aa7695..38d8be60602 100644
--- a/src/unicode/utf16/utf16.go
+++ b/src/unicode/utf16/utf16.go
@@ -83,6 +83,23 @@ func Encode(s []rune) []uint16 {
 	return a[:n]
 }
 
+// AppendRune appends the UTF-16 encoding of the Unicode code point r
+// to the end of p and returns the extended buffer. If the rune is not
+// a valid Unicode code point, it appends the encoding of U+FFFD.
+func AppendRune(a []uint16, r rune) []uint16 {
+	// This function is inlineable for fast handling of ASCII.
+	switch {
+	case 0 <= r && r < surr1, surr3 <= r && r < surrSelf:
+		// normal rune
+		return append(a, uint16(r))
+	case surrSelf <= r && r <= maxRune:
+		// needs surrogate sequence
+		r1, r2 := EncodeRune(r)
+		return append(a, uint16(r1), uint16(r2))
+	}
+	return append(a, replacementChar)
+}
+
 // Decode returns the Unicode code point sequence represented
 // by the UTF-16 encoding s.
 func Decode(s []uint16) []rune {
diff --git a/src/unicode/utf16/utf16_test.go b/src/unicode/utf16/utf16_test.go
index 4ecaabef96c..be339b1fdf1 100644
--- a/src/unicode/utf16/utf16_test.go
+++ b/src/unicode/utf16/utf16_test.go
@@ -43,6 +43,18 @@ func TestEncode(t *testing.T) {
 	}
 }
 
+func TestAppendRune(t *testing.T) {
+	for _, tt := range encodeTests {
+		var out []uint16
+		for _, u := range tt.in {
+			out = AppendRune(out, u)
+		}
+		if !reflect.DeepEqual(out, tt.out) {
+			t.Errorf("AppendRune(%x) = %x; want %x", tt.in, out, tt.out)
+		}
+	}
+}
+
 func TestEncodeRune(t *testing.T) {
 	for i, tt := range encodeTests {
 		j := 0
@@ -193,6 +205,28 @@ func BenchmarkEncodeValidJapaneseChars(b *testing.B) {
 	}
 }
 
+func BenchmarkAppendRuneValidASCII(b *testing.B) {
+	data := []rune{'h', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o'}
+	a := make([]uint16, 0, len(data)*2)
+	for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ {
+		for _, u := range data {
+			a = AppendRune(a, u)
+		}
+		a = a[:0]
+	}
+}
+
+func BenchmarkAppendRuneValidJapaneseChars(b *testing.B) {
+	data := []rune{'日', '本', '語'}
+	a := make([]uint16, 0, len(data)*2)
+	for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ {
+		for _, u := range data {
+			a = AppendRune(a, u)
+		}
+		a = a[:0]
+	}
+}
+
 func BenchmarkEncodeRune(b *testing.B) {
 	for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ {
 		for _, u := range []rune{'𝓐', '𝓑', '𝓒', '𝓓', '𝓔'} {