The authors agree that Bison is a surname of the Veneto and linked areas, derived from a nickname formed on the dialectal adjective bìs ("grey"), applied to a person with grey hair.

E. Rossoni presents it as typically of the Veneto, of the Padua, Venice and Treviso areas. He derives it from a dialectal nickname related to physical characteristics, based on the term biso ("grey").

B. Zuanella specifies that originally it was a nickname formed, with the augmentative suffix -on, on the adjective of Venetian derivation bìs ("grey"), and that it designated a person with grey hair. He documents it present in the first decades of the 17th century in five villages of the Natisone valley (Ponteacco, Biacis, Tarcetta, Antro and Rodda), although by the end of that same century the surname had already become extinct in all those localities. He recalls that its trace was preserved in the place name Bizonta, one of the hamlets of Rodda, which took its name from the surname Bisòn/Bisònt. In the form Bisònt, which coexisted with the original Bisòn, the final t is epenthetic, added to ease pronunciation.