F. Miranda proposes that the surname probably derives from the place name Bauso or Bavuso, the name that until 1929 belonged to the Sicilian municipality of Villafranca Tirrena, in the province of Messina. Miranda also does not rule out a provenance from the Sicilian dialectal term bbàusu, meaning "leap, projecting steep ground, cliff, precipice", or from bbaùsu, said of a child or old person who dribbles continuously or, in a figurative sense, who boasts and brags, according to the Piccitto Sicilian Vocabulary.

V. Blunda considers it a Sicilian surname of dialectal origin, formed from the adjective vavùsu, meaning "drooling, snotty". According to Blunda, it may have originated as a pejorative nickname applied to a person considered immature or helpless, a frequent motivation in the mocking onomastics of the island. The term would derive from vava ("drool") and belongs to the repertoire of nicknames based on physical traits characteristic of Sicilian popular language.

As for its distribution, Miranda notes that it is an infrequent surname, present above all in Sicily: in the Catania area, in the Enna area, in the Palermo area and in the Syracuse area. There are also specific and localised areas outside the island, in Piedmont, Tuscany, Lombardy, Lazio and Liguria.