E. De Felice notes that this surname has as its base the name and nickname Curàtolo, documented in Molfetta as early as 1170 under the Latinized form Curatulus. It derives from the Calabrian and Sicilian dialectal word curàtulu —in the Calabrian zones of grika language, curàtora—, with the meanings of "chief of the cowherds or shepherds", "foreman" (especially in the salt pans) and "administrator of a rural estate". According to De Felice, the surname is spread in Calabria, where the variant Curatola prevails, and in Sicily.

V. Blunda agrees on the dialectal origin and on the meaning of "administrator of a rural estate", but adds a historical dimension: the curàtulu was the one in charge of managing the fief or the masseria in the absence of the owner, a central figure of the Sicilian latifundist economy from the Hohenstaufen domination until the agrarian reform of the 20th century. Blunda also specifies that the popular association of the surname with the Italian curato ("parish priest with the cure of souls") constitutes a false etymology.