The authors agree that Butta is a surname linked to the Lombardy area, although they propose different etymological origins.

E. Rossoni derives it from a dialectal nickname probably related to the trade of the cooper practised by the ancestors, or to beekeeping, possibly coming from the archaic Lombard term butt ("swarm of insects or bees"). He presents it as typically of the Lombardy area. He notes that Butta is specific to the area between the Bergamo and Lecco areas, while the variant Butti, much more widespread, has its main cluster in the Como and Lecco areas, with presence also in Milan and clusters in Trieste and in the Arezzo and Florence area.

V. Blunda presents it as a Sicilian surname of Germanic origin, derived from the personal name Butta, a Lombard anthroponym linked to an onomastic base of disputed etymology, possibly connected to a hypocoristic form of names compounded on roots such as bod. He warns that the popular interpretation that associates the surname with the Italian verb buttare ("to throw, to cast") is a false etymology: the verb derives from the Germanic botan, with a different sense, and the coincidence with the surname is accidental. He also notes that the variant Buta, with a single consonant, is peculiar to areas of the north, as opposed to the form with double t of the south.

Surnames in Italy considers it a common noun, recurrent in onomastics, derived from the Lombard term butt ("swarm").