The authors agree that the surname has a Greek origin. E. Rossoni notes that it is probably an altered form of the surname Callari and refers to Rohlfs, who identifies it as the Italianization of the Greek surname Kalleris, documented in the 18th century as the name of a notary in Oppido. V. Blunda, for his part, links it to the Greek Callères, related to the root kal-, "beautiful, handsome", preserved in the Byzantine transmission of southern Italy, where the Italianized spelling with double ll became fixed from the original personal name.

As for its geographical distribution, Rossoni documents it in Sicily —in Scordia, in the Catania area, and in Palazzolo Acreide and Canicattini Bagni, in the Syracuse area—, as well as in Piedmont, in the Cuneo area (Carrù and Mondovì) and in Turin, and in Liguria, in Genoa and in Albenga, in the Savona area. The presence in Piedmont and Liguria, according to Rossoni, would be the result of emigration from the south.