E. Rossoni notes that this surname is present throughout Italy, with greater concentration in the north, in Sicily and in the Naples area. He indicates that it can derive from place names spread throughout the peninsula, such as Carrara, a locality documented in the Latina, Massa-Carrara and Padua areas, and that the first traces of its transformation into a surname are recorded in Bergamo in 1603.

F. De Laurentiis specifies that the surname, although present in a scattered way in Italy, is frequent mainly in Tuscany, in eastern Liguria and in the Veneto. He derives it from the place names Carrara —a city of northwestern Tuscany—, Carrara San Giorgio and Carrara San Stefano, in the Padua area, as well as from the gentilic Carrarese. He also notes that the surname is historically associated with the Venetian feudal family of the Carrara, lords of Padua between 1318 and 1406.