The authors agree that this surname derives from the term that designates the dragon, although they differ on the precise linguistic origin of that root. F. De Laurentiis notes that the base is the word drago, used in the Middle Ages both in its proper sense of a fabulous animal and in extensive and metaphorical senses, and adds that in some cases the surname may continue the Latin personal name Draco, Draconis. F. Miranda agrees in noting the Latin name Draco as the etymon, meaning "dragon" but also "serpent", and adds that drago is also the name of a constellation. Miranda also posits that the surname could derive from the abbreviated form of the Lombard name Dracoaldus.

P. Durante proposes a Greek origin, from the term drakon, which means "serpent". V. Blunda also refers to the Greek dràcon and develops that this form designated the dragon as a fabulous animal of the popular Mediterranean tradition, which would have motivated its use as a nickname applied to an ancestor for his ferocious character or his corpulence, following the habitual patterns of the Sicilian nicknames of zoological base and their subsequent crystallisation as surnames.