A. Bongioanni and V. Blunda differ on the origin of the surname.

Bongioanni identifies it as a Hebrew given name meaning "cheerful, happy". He notes that it is a name not rare today, perhaps because of certain families' preference for two-syllable names, and recalls that the Romans preferred such names for slaves.

Blunda, on the other hand, for the Sicilian variant derives it from the Germanic feminine personal name Ata, a short form linked to the onomastic root atha ("nobility"), one of the most productive elements in Germanic anthroponymy. As a short and archaic name, Ata belongs to the oldest stratum of Lombard onomastics, prior to the systematisation of the two-part name. He notes that it was preserved as a surname in Sicily after the Germanic presence that extended from the 6th century to the Norman period.