The authors agree that the surname originates in the Sicilian dialectal term that designated a particular type of agricultural worker. F. Miranda records the dialectal form bburgisi, with several nuances: "peasant who works by the year and lives on the same estate he cultivates", "farmer" and "inhabitant of the outskirts of the city". Over time, the term came to be equivalent to "belonging to the bourgeoisie" and, by extension, to "well-off, rich".

V. Blunda specifies the dialectal form burgìsi and circumscribes its original sense to that of "colonist" or "tenant peasant": the free agricultural worker who cultivated feudal lands by contract, a figure characteristic of the Sicilian latifundium from the late Middle Ages until the abolition of feudalism in the 19th century.

Miranda notes that the surname is diffused in almost all the regions of Italy, with a greater presence in Calabria and Sicily, but also in Lazio, Lombardy, Piedmont, Liguria, Campania, Apulia, Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany. In Sicily it appears in all the provinces, with notable concentrations in the Catania, Palermo, Ragusa, Syracuse and Trapani areas.