The authors agree that the surname was formed from a personal name of Germanic origin linked to the root ans ("divinity").

E. Rossoni derives it from the Italo-Germanic name Ansaldonus, a Latinisation of the Lombard Ansoaldo. According to some, it could also derive from the Hebrew name Absalom. He recalls in Sicily Giacinto Ansalone, born on 10 November 1598 in Santo Stefano Quisquina, canonised as a martyr with the name of Saint Giordano Ansalone. He also documents the name in medieval writings of the Modena area in the forms Ansalon and Absalon (12th century).

V. Blunda, for the Sicilian variant, derives it from the Germanic personal name Anselone, an augmentative form linked to the anthroponym Ansa, root ans ("divinity"). He notes that the suffix -one is one of the most productive morphemes in Italian for forming augmentatives from personal names. He adds that the variant Anzalone reflects the usual voicing of the sibilant characteristic of Sicilian.