The authors agree that the surname is related to the term "needle", whether as a navigation instrument, a tool or a descriptive nickname.

E. Rossoni suggests that it could derive from a seafaring trade —aguglia was the old name for the compass needle—, or from the trade of fisherman or net-maker (agugliara is a type of net used to catch garfish).

V. Blunda, for the Sicilian variant, derives it from the dialectal word aùgghia ("needle"), belonging to the group of surnames formed on the names of everyday objects. As a surname it may have originated in the trade of needle-maker (comparable to Agugliaro) or as a nickname applied to a thin and sharp-featured person. He notes that the variant Guglia, without the initial prosthetic a-, is the dialectally less marked form.