E. De Felice notes that this surname derives from the transformation into a surname of the given name Cesare, which was widely taken up and spread during Humanism and the Renaissance. Cesare continues the Latin cognomen Caesar Caesaris, famous above all for Gaius Julius Caesar, the Roman politician and soldier who died in 44 BC, and for his imperial successors. Caesar became a title and attribute of all the Roman emperors, equivalent as a common noun to "emperor," and is almost certainly a name of Etruscan origin, of uncertain interpretation.

De Felice further notes that the surname is found throughout Italy. The forms with the prefixes De or Di are peculiar to southern Italy, while the variants Cesarìn, Cesarato, and Cesaratto are characteristic of northeastern Italy, in the regions of Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and Trentino-Alto Adige.

P. Canè agrees on the Latin origin of the given name Cesare, classifying it as a patronymic base or given name, without adding new elements to the analysis. It is similarly recorded, in brief, as deriving from the Latin given name Cesare, equivalent to Caesar.