The authors agree that it is a typically Sicilian surname. E. Rossoni notes that it presents two clusters of origin: one in Butera, in the Caltanissetta area, and another in Palermo, and that the surname derives from the place name Bronte, a locality of the Catania area.

V. Blunda proposes a different etymology: the surname would go back to the Greek brontḗ, meaning "thunder" and designating the roar that follows lightning in a storm. According to Blunda, the term would have functioned originally as a nickname applied to an ancestor for his powerful voice or his impetuous character, and later became a surname through family transmission. It should be noted that both explanations are not necessarily mutually exclusive, since the place name Bronte in turn has its origin in that same Greek root.