The name Tagkawayan was said to have been derived from the phrase "taga kawayan" which during the early Spanish period was the name given to the people living in Tagkawayan a place where there were plenty of bamboos called kawayan. The name was thus given by the Spaniards to the locality which is now Tagkawayan.

The municipality was formerly a barrio of Guinayangan and consisted principally of four sitios called:

• Aggrupacion now the Poblacion where the seat of the local government is located
• Tagkawayan-Bato now barrios Munting Parang and Rizal
• Tagkawayan-Sabang now barrio Sabang, and
• Tagkawayan-Ilaya which are now barrios Sta. Cecilia, Aliji Colong-colong and Mahinta.

Don Tomas B. Morato II, owner of the Sta. Cecilia Sawmills, Inc. and former Congressman of the 2nd District of Quezon, together with the late Don Guillermo Eleazar, former Justice of the Peace of Guinayangan, together with other leading persons, were the principal sponsors for the conversion of barrio Tagkawayan of Guinayangan. into a municipality.

On December 31, 1940, the late President Manuel Luis Quezon issued Executive Order No. 316 consolidating certain barrios of Guinayangan into a municipality with seat at Tagkawayan. Due to certain deficiencies, three (3) months thereafter, President Quezon issued a supplementary Executive Order No 330 dated March 7, 1941. However, it seemed that certain barrios particularly Aloneros need be returned to the mother municipality and to correct such inconsistencies. After Liberation in 1947, the late President Manuel A. Roxas issued Executive Order No. 78, dated August 12, 1947 making the Kabibihan river the natural boundary between the daughter municipality (Tagkawayan) and the mother municipality (Guinayangan).

Extending on the left side border of the Ragay Gulf, towards the south from the mouth of Kabibihan river, the municipality of Tagkawayan is bounded on the North, by the Municipality of Calauag, Quezon Province and Labo, Camarines Norte on the east, by the Municipality of Del Gallego, Camarines Sur, on the South and West by Ragay Gulf and the Kabibihan River from its watershed on the Gumihan Creek.

Tagkawayan has a total land area of 64,100 hectares comprising of forty-five (45) barangays. Like the region on the southeast of Luzon, the place has two principal climatic seasons, namely the dry season dur-ing the months of January to June and the wet season commencing July to early December of every year. Along the seaside is a level strip of land and on the north and Northeast are mountains abundant with plateaus conducive to farming.

During the early Spanish period, the place was predominantly inhabited by the aborigines called Aetas which roamed about the Cadig mountain ranges which form part of the Sierra Madre mountain ranges extending from the north to the south east part of Quezon province. However people from Ambos Camarines (Norte and Sur) as well from Ragay, Camarines Sur and from the Bondoc Peninsula migrated to the place, which was densely forested.

During the turn of the century up to the period it was created Tagkawayan thrives on lumber and minerals so that it becomes the melting pot of almost all group of people like the Tagalogs, Bicolanos, Ilocanos, Pampangueños and even Visayans.

Roman Catholicism is the principal religion of the people. There were Iglesia ni Cristo, Protestants and Seventh Day Adventists in town.