The authors agree that the surname refers to a semantic field related to deception, enchantment and the figure of the town crier or itinerant healer. E. Rossoni notes that it could derive from the Provençal term charaut ("prostitute") or from the Greek kerayles ("player of a wind instrument"), which would indicate that the first bearer worked as a town crier; he adds that in ancient times ceraldo also meant "trickster".

F. Miranda develops the etymological chain in greater detail: it starts from the Old French charaut ("spell, charm, magic") and its form charaude, which passed into Old Italian as ceraldo ("snake charmer") and then into the Sicilian ciraulo and the Calabrian ceràulu. He cites Varvaro (1968), who proposes ceraula with the sense of "horn player, town crier", a figure of sorcerer-healer who travelled from village to village with snakes to treat the bites of venomous animals. Miranda also links the surname with the Neapolitan dialectal ciaravolo ("charlatan").

Rossoni also incorporates the hypothesis of the scholar Rohlfs, according to which Ceraldi would be a variant of Giraldi, derived from the Germanic personal name Geroaldus, documented in the 10th century in France.

The surname is typically southern, with presence concentrated in Campania, Calabria, Basilicata and Sicily. Rossoni records clusters in the Caserta area —in localities such as Mondragone, Sessa Aurunca and Carinola—, in Naples, in the Potenza area and in the Crotone area. The variant Ciraldo appears mainly in the Catania area, in localities such as Bronte.