Alessandria proposes that the surname seems to be a calque of the French Ferrand or Ferrant, a term that in the medieval epic romances designated the iron-grey colour and frequently qualified horses. He notes that the onomastic type is widely spread in Italy, above all in the variant Ferrante, with greater presence in the Alessandria area —in localities such as Ovada, Cremolino and Mirabello—.

P. Regati posits an alternative hypothesis: the surname could be a deformation of the names Fernando or Ferdinando. Regati places the demographic weight of the surname in Genoa, and explains its diffusion in Liguria by the country-city movement peculiar to industrialisation, with lineages native to the Alto Monferrato Acquese, in Piedmont, that would have migrated towards the city.