The authors agree that this surname derives from the Greek personal name Athanásios, composed of the privative prefix a- and thánatos ("death"), with the sense of "immortal". This name passed into Latin as Athanasius and was incorporated into the Christian world as an omen of the immortality of the soul.

E. De Felice notes that the tradition of the name is mainly Greek-Byzantine and that, in the Christian context, the reference to immortality alludes to spiritual salvation. He places the diffusion of the surname in the peninsular south and in eastern Sicily.

G. Rohlfs highlights its presence throughout Calabria, where the variant Atanasio appears in the provinces of Cosenza and Catanzaro. He also indicates that the name survives in Greece as a surname and that the term is also of Neapolitan and Sicilian use.

F. Miranda specifies that in Sicily the surname is distributed in all the provinces, with greater presence in Catania, Ragusa, Messina and Palermo, and that in the Enna area it is known in Centuripe. He also mentions variants such as Atanasio, Atanasi and Attanasi.

V. Blunda adds that in Sicilian onomastics the name entered by Christian route in honour of Saint Athanasius, before becoming a family surname.