E. De Felice and A. Bongioanni fully agree in noting that the surname has as its base the feminine name Agnése, which continues the Latin Agnes, an adaptation of the Greek Hagné, from the adjective hagnós ("pure, chaste"). Saint Agnes, martyred in 304, is one of the most venerated saints of the Roman calendar (21 January). The surname is used mainly as a matronymic and spread throughout Italy: in the North the forms Agnesi and its altered forms predominate; in the South, the variants with article D'Agnese and L'Agnese. Both authors also note that the Friulian-Cadorine form Dell'Anése makes the derivation of Danesi and Dansini from this name plausible; on the other hand, Gnesotto (from the Valsugana area) does not derive from Agnese but from the place name Agnedo.

The Web Cultura Barocca source agrees that it is a matronymic, that is, the surname-formation of a name from the female ascending line. It explains that the personal name Agnese effectively continues the vitality of the Christian Latin name Agnes, stressed on the last syllable like the Greek personal name of which it is in a way a calque, namely the register Hagne, adapted from the Greek feminine adjective hagne = "pure and chaste (woman)".

V. Blunda adds a regional perspective by noting that it is a Sicilian surname of Greek origin, belonging to the Christian anthroponymic stock transmitted by Byzantine culture. It derives from the etymon Agnè, meaning "pure, chaste". He explains that the name spread throughout Italy through the cult of Saint Agnes, a 4th-century Roman martyr, but preserved in Sicily the original Greek form thanks to the persistent influence of the Eastern liturgy during the island's long Byzantine period.