E. Rossoni notes that Caputa is a very scarce surname, characteristic of the Enna area, in Sicily. He links it to the medieval term caputa, meaning "head" and, by extension, "big-headed", documented in the Codex diplomaticus Cavensis. Rossoni also relates to this same origin the surname Caputano, fairly scarce and peculiar to Cava de' Tirreni, in the Salerno area, derived from caputano, with the sense of "put in command" or "big-headed".

V. Blunda offers a complementary perspective: he considers Caputa a Sicilian surname of dialectal origin, derived from the word caputa, meaning "capacity" or "capaciousness". According to Blunda, it would have arisen as a nickname applied to someone recognised for his capacity for work or economic soundness, a motivation not very frequent in Sicilian popular onomastics, where nicknames of a physical character predominate. Blunda also notes that Caputa forms a pair with Caputo, both derived from the same lexical root linked to the idea of head and, by extension, of capacity or understanding.