Now joined with Beesby, Hawerby is in the Haverstoe Wapentake of Lincolnshire, which has also been joined with Bradley Wapentake to form Bradley Haverstoe Wapentake.

The name comes from an Old Norse male personal name Hávarðr plus the Old Norse element by ‘farmstead, village’. Interestingly, the same personal name is found in the wapentake name, Haverstoe, which combines it with the Old Norse element haugr ‘mound’. As Kenneth Cameron put it, ‘the coincidence is too great to avoid the conclusion that both are named from the same man. The site of the wapentake meeting-place is almost certainly a mound in the parish of Hawerby’. It has been suggested that the mound in question is a prehistoric round barrow (of which there is little or no trace today, as a result of ploughing) at TF 254 977, which has a fine view of the Humberside levels.