The authors agree that this surname is of Sicilian origin and is linked to the rabbit, either as a nickname or as a reference to a trade.

E. Rossoni maintains that the surname would derive from a nickname related to the breeding of rabbits, and places it geographically in Palermo and its surroundings —Carini, San Giuseppe Jato, Monreale and Cefalù—, as well as in Syracuse and Porto Empedocle, in the Agrigento area.

V. Blunda provides a more detailed explanation: the surname comes from the Sicilian dialectal word cunigghiàru, which designated both the breeder or hunter of rabbits and the enclosure where the animals were kept. According to Blunda, the trade ranged from the peasant who bred domestic rabbits to the hunter who pursued them in the Mediterranean scrubland. The term could have become a surname by direct reference to the trade or as a nickname of the one who lived near a cunigghiàru.