The authors agree that the surname derives from the Greek árchon, meaning "chief" or "foreman". E. Rossoni notes that the term possibly indicated that the founding ancestor was a kind of foreman or recruiter of labour, and documents its presence in the Naples area —particularly in Naples and Pozzuoli— and in Maddaloni, in the Caserta area. The variant Arconi, on the other hand, would be typically peculiar to Lazio.

V. Blunda links the surname with the Greek word archònes, "chief contractor", noting that the term belongs to the Byzantine lexicon and designated the person in charge of a contract or collective enterprise. According to this author, the surname originally functioned as a trade nickname applied to the ancestor, which later became a surname along the family line in the onomastics of southern Italy. Blunda documents it in Sicily.