The authors agree that the surname is related to the nominal base Angelo or Angiolo, although they differ on the formation.

E. Rossoni suggests that these are archaic and dialectal collective forms in -eri or -ieri, which indicated the group of the children of an Angelo or Angiolo. He recalls as an illustrious trace the Sienese writer and poet Cecco Angiolieri (c. 1260–1312).

Alessandria identifies it as a surname of quite ancient written tradition, documented with an Anzelerius Cavezana in the deed of reconciliation between Alessandria and Vercelli in 1199. He notes that there is a French equivalent in the surname Angelier, analysed as a probable cross between a Latin base angelus and the Germanic harja ("army"). Another hypothesis points to the type Angelher, where the first component would be the stem Angil, of the people of the Angles.