E. Rossoni notes that this surname would have, in many cases, an ethnic origin referring to the people of Camini, in the Reggio Calabria area, whose place name would derive from the archaic Greek term kaminion, meaning "furnace" or "forge". In other cases, it could derive from the Greek kaminétes, with the sense of "small forge", suggesting that the founders of the lineage were dedicated to the smelting of metals. Rossoni documents its presence mainly in the Reggio Calabria area —in localities such as Villa San Giovanni, Benestare, Bovalino, Santa Cristina d'Aspromonte, Careri and Cittanova— and in the Messina area, in Sicily.

G. Rohlfs agrees on the Greek-Byzantine origin of the surname and on its link with Camini, a locality of the province of Reggio Calabria, but specifies that the formative element is the Greek gentilic suffix -ίτης, which indicates provenance. Rohlfs broadens the area of distribution to the whole of Calabria, as well as to the Neapolitan sphere and the Sicilian one in general.