The authors agree that the surname derives from an archaic or dialectal form of the word "Francia" (France), used to indicate the French origin of an ancestor or his link with contingents or administrations of that kingdom.

E. Rossoni notes that the term would have arisen as a nickname to indicate that the founder of the lineage was of French origin or was in the service of the Gallic army. He documents an early example in Venice, at the beginning of the 15th century, where a certain "Zuane de Franza pentor da S. Aponal" appears. The surname presents specific zones in several regions: Sicily, especially in the Syracuse area; Puglia, particularly in the Salentine area —the southernmost zone of that region, in the south of Italy—; the Salerno area; that of Trieste; that of Milan; and Piedmont.

V. Blunda approaches the surname from a Sicilian perspective and considers it of dialectal origin, derived from the word frànza, which in the local dialect generically designated France and, by extension, the native of those territories. He associates its diffusion in Sicily with the Angevin domination of the 13th century and the successive arrivals of administrators, soldiers and artisans under the Anjou kings, a habitual motivation in surnames of ethnic identification in the Mediterranean sphere.