The authors agree that the surname is linked to a common root: the Latin barba, "beard", although they differ in the etymological paths proposed.

E. De Stefani notes that the Latin term barba derived, through the suffix -ula, into barbula, giving rise to the Friulian words bàrbule and barbolòn, which designate the wattle of hens, and which connect the surname with a distinctive physical feature of the ancestor. De Stefani also considers a relation with the old Friulian barbogli and barbói, terms that meant "kid goat" and, by extension, "beardless youth", a sense documented in other Friulian nicknames applied to boys. Over time this denomination became a surname. The author documents it in Friuli from the 15th century, with rooted presence in Collina, a hamlet of the municipality of Forni Avoltri, in the Carnia —a mountainous area of northern Friuli, province of Udine—, from the end of the 16th century, with some clusters also in Tolmezzo.

E. Rossoni, on the other hand, proposes that the surname may derive from the medieval name Barbolus, documented in the Cartularium caritatis andegavensis and attested in Budrio, in the Bologna area, in the 15th century. Rossoni also mentions as a possibility a nickname related to fishing, without developing this hypothesis. Geographically, he places the surname in the Venetian-Friulian area.