A. Bongioanni notes that this surname derives from a given name, and that according to the Germanist Förstemann it could come from the name of a people (Falah), although in Italy it is more probable that it comes from the name of the bird of prey, like other surnames such as Orso, Lupo, Leone and Cane.

V. Blunda considers it a surname of Sicilian and Germanic origin, derived from the personal name Falk, linked to the root falka (falcon). He notes that both the Italian falco and the Spanish halcón descend from that Germanic root, which displaced the Latin accipiter in a good part of the Romance lexicon. Blunda also highlights the symbolic value of the falcon in medieval Germanic culture, where it was an emblem of the swift and precise warrior, and where falconry constituted a noble practice that associated the bird of prey with the aristocratic condition of its bearer.