E. Rossoni and V. Blunda differ on the origin of the surname.

Rossoni derives it from the Latin arra ("pledge, token, earnest money"). He notes that in Sardinia arra is the marriage ring, understood as a pledge or commitment of fidelity. He documents the surname among the signatories of the Peace of Eleonora of 1388 with Arras Aranio and Arras Mario, and in the Condaghe of Santa Maria di Bonarcado with Arras Terico, chaplain of the court.

Blunda, on the other hand, for the Sicilian variant derives it from the dialectal word árra ("hock, the back part of the leg"), formed from an anatomical detail. As a surname it may have originated in a descriptive nickname applied to a person characterised by some feature in that part of the body, or perhaps linked to the trade of the butcher, where the cut was in habitual use in the nomenclature of the butchering of quadrupeds.