The authors agree that this surname derives from the medieval name Gesù, an Italianization of the Hebrew personal name Yeshua or Yehoshua, which is translated as "God saves" or "God is salvation". They also agree in noting that, in some cases, it could be a surname attributed by charitable institutions to abandoned children, as a way of invoking for them the protection of Jesus Christ.

F. Miranda adds that the original meaning of the Hebrew name was more precisely "God helps, may God help you", and that the surname is distributed in about a hundred municipalities of several regions of Italy, among them Sicily, Lombardy, Piedmont, Lazio, Emilia-Romagna, Basilicata and Puglia, with lesser presence in Tuscany, Calabria, Umbria, Abruzzo, the Marche, Veneto and Sardinia.

In Sicily, the variant Di Gesù appears in the Palermo, Trapani, Catania, Agrigento, Caltanissetta and Messina areas, as well as in localities of the Enna area. The variant Di Gesu —without an accent— is recorded mainly in the Caltanissetta, Catania, Agrigento, Palermo, Trapani and Enna areas. E. Rossoni also notes the presence of Di Gesu in the Vibo Valentia area, in Calabria, and of Di Gesù also in Basilicata and in the Salento area —that is, the southernmost zone of the region of Puglia—.