 The name is of Viking origin, deriving from the Old Norse "Ra-byr", meaning 'boundary settlement'.It is believed to be so named because it lay close to the boundary which existed in the 10th and 11th centuries between the Norse colony in Wirral to the north, centred on Thingwall, and Anglo-Saxon Mercia to the south.Raby was a township in Neston Parish of the Wirral Hundred with a population of 131 in 1801, 195 in 1851, 350 in 1901 and 308 in 1951.