E. Rossoni and V. Blunda differ on the origin of the surname.

Rossoni identifies it as a surname given to children abandoned to the charitable institution that took them in, indicating that the child was in need of others' help.

Blunda, on the other hand, for the Sicilian variant derives it from the dialectal word abbisògnu ("need"), formed from an abstract noun. As a surname it may have originated in a nickname applied to someone who lived in economic hardship or, according to the inverse motivation documented in other Italian cases, to someone who was always ready to meet the needs of others. He notes that surnames formed on abstract common nouns are frequent in medieval Sicilian onomastics.