The authors agree that this surname derives mainly from the place name Capri, the island of the Gulf of Naples. E. De Felice notes that it is a surname common in the Naples area, formed directly from that place name. E. Rossoni broadens this perspective and indicates that, in the great majority of cases, the surname would derive from place names such as Capri, in the province of Naples, or Capri Leone, in the Messina area; in some cases it could derive from dialectal nicknames referring to the trade of shepherd.

Rossoni documents a wide geographical distribution: an important presence in Rome and in Lazio, areas in the L'Aquila and Pescara areas, small presences in Campania, an area in the Brindisi and Bari areas, and minor presences in the Messina and Palermo areas.

V. Blunda proposes for the Sicilian surname a different origin: it would come from the Greek Caprì, a personal name preserved in the Byzantine transmission of southern Italy, whose Italianised spelling —with the characteristic final accented i— would have been fixed in the onomastics of the island and became a surname along the family line.