The authors agree that this surname is of Greek-Byzantine origin and derives from a diminutive of the Greek term κορμός, which means "trunk". G. Rohlfs links it to the family of the Greek Κουρμάκις, a diminutive of κορμός, and places it geographically in the Reggio Calabria area and in the province of Catanzaro, with presence in Sicily under the forms Cormaci and Cormagi. He also notes that it is a sibling form of Cormace and refers to the word Curmaci as a related entry.

V. Blunda, for his part, gathers the Greek form cormakes with the sense of "little trunk" and proposes that the surname arose as a descriptive nickname applied to an ancestor for his short and robust physical build. Blunda also links it to Cormá, a surname that he records in the immediately previous entry of his work.