The surname derives from a given name of Greek origin. A. Bongioanni notes that the scholar Fumagalli interprets it as "contrary to love", although Bongioanni expresses doubts about that reading. Bongioanni also recalls that Saint Anterus was pope and martyr under the emperor Maximinus I, and that his feast day is celebrated on 3 January; the surname is linked to this name in the onomastic tradition of Piedmont.

V. Blunda derives it from the Greek Anteròs, an old personal name preserved by its persistence in the onomastic tradition of the Mediterranean. According to Blunda, the surname would have reached southern Italy by Byzantine route, becoming fixed in Sicily with the Italianised spelling of the original name, later transmitted along the family line.