The authors propose very different origins for the surname Busa, linked to different regions and onomastic traditions.

E. Rossoni describes it as a surname with its most important cluster in the Vicenza area, with a secondary cluster in the Ravenna area, another small one in the Cosenza area and another in the north of the island of Sardinia. It seems to originate from the Vicenza area and would refer to the characteristics of the ancestor's place of provenance, linked to the Venetian dialectal term busa ("hole", but also "locality situated at a low point").

V. Blunda presents it as a Sicilian surname of Arabic origin, of agricultural base. He derives it from the etymon būsah, meaning "dry stalk of maize" or of other cereals, in reference to the landscape of the harvested fields of rural Sicily.