The authors agree that the surname was formed from the Lombard personal name Allone.

E. Rossoni derives it from the Lombard name Allone, known through a Lombard duke of Lucca. He documents the name in a Cartula of January 1176 in Casei Gerola (Pavia).

V. Blunda, for the Sicilian variant, considers the etymology uncertain but documents it in medieval Lombard onomastics. He links it possibly to the root alla ("all, whole"), which appears in compounds such as Alemanno or Alfonso. He notes that, as a short name preserved in its archaic form, it belongs to the repertoire of Lombard anthroponyms transmitted without modification from the Early Middle Ages until its fixation as a surname in Sicily.