The authors propose different origins for the surname Brucculeri, both Sicilian and linked to a trade.

E. Rossoni presents it as typically Sicilian, peculiar to the Agrigento area, in localities such as Grotte, Castrofilippo, Agrigento, Racalmuto and Canicattì, with a cluster also in Palermo. He derives it from a dialectal nickname applied to the producer or seller of broccoli.

V. Blunda presents it as a Sicilian surname of dialectal origin, linked to a craft trade. It comes from the dialectal word brucculèri, meaning "mason's hawk", a tool used by Sicilian masons to hold and apply mortar during the construction of walls and coverings. As a surname it could have originated in the trade of the blacksmith who made them or in that of the mason who used them, in a metonymy between the tool and the trade characteristic of Italian craft onomastics.