The authors agree that this surname is of Greek origin, derived from the term kondós ("short", "of low stature"), which would have been applied as a descriptive nickname to an ancestor for his short stature.

E. Rossoni notes that the surname is typical of Calabria and distinguishes two variants: Condò, with presence in the Soverato area —in the province of Catanzaro— and in the Reggio Calabria area, specifically in San Giorgio Morgeto, Polistena, Cinquefrondi and Anoia; and Cundò, an absolutely rare form and more circumscribed to the province of Catanzaro.

G. Rohlfs confirms the Greek-Byzantine origin and broadens the geographical distribution: he places it in the city of Reggio Calabria and its province —including Gerace and the Polistena area—, in the province of Catanzaro, and extends it also to Naples and Sicily. He adds that in Greece the form Kondós survives as a current surname.

P. Durante also ascribes the surname to Greek, with the base form kondós, without providing additional geographical precisions. V. Blunda, for his part, records the variant còndos with the same meaning of "brief, low, short", and notes that this Greek root functioned as the base of a family of compound surnames with the prefix condo-, among which he mentions Condello and Condifòdero, which suggests a wider onomastic productivity of this root in the southern sphere.