A. Bongioanni notes that it is a given name of Greek-Latin origin, linked to the hero of the Trojan legend. Although that legend reached great popularity during the Middle Ages —with works such as Le roman de Troie or I fatti d'Enea—, the name was little used as an anthroponym; it appears, together with other derivatives of the Aeneid, in some genealogies. Bongioanni also records its use in Dalmatia as a feminine name.

V. Blunda derives it from the Greek Enèas, a form preserved in the onomastic repertoire of the Mediterranean as a baptismal name, which would have been transformed into a surname in eastern Sicily by the habitual route of transmission of Greek personal names.