F. De Laurentiis notes that the surname derives from ancient figurative, jocular and allusive nicknames formed on the term furia, with the sense of "person of great impetus, who is always in a hurry"; or it may come from Furia, a divinity of Roman mythology equivalent to the Greek Erinyes.

F. Miranda proposes a different origin: the surname —together with its variants Furìa, Furi, Furio and Di Furia— would derive from the gens Furia, one of the most important families of ancient Rome, or from the Latin nomen Furius. The gens Furia, native to Medullia (Lazio), established itself in Rome under the reign of Romulus and was admitted to the patrician order; its most famous member was the dictator Furius Camillus, of the 4th century BC. Miranda also gathers the mythological sense: furia as the personification of the wrathful impetus, violence and passion.

The surname has independent origins in different regions of Italy. Miranda notes specific zones of presence in Lombardy, Sicily, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, Lazio, Tuscany, Piedmont and Campania.