The authors agree that the surname has a possible link with the microtoponym Cascina Fugazza of Cornate d'Adda, in the Milan area. E. Rossoni notes that the forms fugassa and fogassa are dialectal words equivalent to "focaccia" and that the surname could have originated as a nickname referring to the trade of the one who made that bread or to some anecdote related to it. Rossoni also mentions a possible link with the Latin name Fugatius, associated with Sanctus Fugatius, a missionary sent to Britannia by Pope Eleutherius during his pontificate (approximately between 175 and 189). As an early testimony of the transformation into a surname, he cites a record of the Archivio di Stato di Bergamo where a Giovanni fu Bartolomeo de Fugatia appears, of the Bergamo area.

From Surnames in Italy a complementary reading is proposed: the series of microtoponyms documented in the region —among them the references in fugatia of the Liber Notitiae Sanctorum Mediolani, the mentions of le Fugatie in the Liber consignationis prebendarum of Monza (1237), the place Fugazzolo near Berceto and the Pian della Fugazza between the Lessini mountains— suggests that both the term and the surname refer to a particular morphology of the terrain, more than to a single place of origin.

As for the geographical distribution, Rossoni specifies that Fugazza is peculiar to the Pavia area, while Fugazzi is concentrated in the area between the provinces of Piacenza and Genoa.