The authors agree that this surname derives from the trade of the blacksmith. F. Miranda notes that, together with Ferrara and its variants, it comes directly or through hypocoristics and diverse alterations from nicknames linked to the trade of blacksmith (in Latin faber ferrarius) or of worker in the extraction and fusion of iron. In Sicilian dialectal language, the corresponding form is firraru, meaning "blacksmith" or "farrier". Miranda also highlights that there is an associated place name in Ferrara, provincial capital in Emilia-Romagna.

V. Blunda, centred on the Sicilian sphere, gathers the dialectal word firràru and underlines the social role of the blacksmith as a central figure of any Sicilian village, whose forge supplied horseshoes, agricultural implements, locks and domestic wares to the whole rural community. The surname has independent origins in different regions of Italy, although its presence is especially intense in Campania, Calabria and Sicily, and also in Piedmont, Veneto, Lombardy, Liguria, Lazio, Puglia, Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna. In Sicily it extends through all its provinces.