The authors agree that this surname derives from the Sardinian dialect word idda (also recorded as bidda or vidda), the phonetic outcome of the Latin villa, meaning "village" or "town". It indicates that a person or family belonged to a particular locality, as opposed to those who lived in the countryside or came from elsewhere. In that sense, it would be the Sardinian equivalent of the Italian surname Villa.

E. De Felice notes that the surname already appears in the Sardinian Condaghi of the late Middle Ages in the forms Debidda and the Latinized De Villa, and that it was also frequent as a place name.

E. Rossoni adds that the origin may likewise be directly toponymic, linked to places such as Punta Idda, in the Ozieri area, or to localities around Sassari. He further mentions that among the signatories of the Pace di Eleonora of 1388 several bearers of this surname appear. Rossoni specifies that, in old documents, the name always appears preceded by the preposition de, indicating provenance. The form Idda is characteristic of the western coast of the province of Sassari, in Sardinia.