The authors agree in noting that this surname has its origin in Charybdis, the Latin name of the famous whirlpool of the Strait of Messina, which in Greco-Latin mythology was personified as a sea monster. E. Rossoni indicates that the surname presents a reduced geographical distribution, with a small area in the Reggio Calabria area and another in the Salento area —that is, the southernmost zone of the Puglia region, in southern Italy—. Rossoni adds that it could also derive from the locality of Caridi, in the Aspromonte, in Calabria, or from nicknames related to the dialectal term cariddi ("dear ones").

V. Blunda maintains that the direct etymon is the Greek Charybdis, preserved in Greek onomastics as a personal name, and that the surname functioned originally as a nickname applied to the ancestor for some link with that area of the sea, later becoming a surname along the family line. Rossoni, for his part, distinguishes this surname from the form Caridi, more widespread in the Reggio Calabria area and in the Messina area, and notes that for that variant some studies propose a derivation from the Greek karýdi ("walnut").