Surnames in Italy holds that this surname appears to derive from a dialect term designating a type of pole, whose lexical base is the same as that of the French javelot, of Celto-Germanic origin. It links it to the Lombardy plain.

E. Rossoni proposes that the surname would derive from a dialect nickname, and notes that the term giavarino is documented in the 17th century: it appears on an old gravestone in Monticelli Brusati, in the Brescia area, and in a Brescian notarial deed of 1637. Rossoni rules out as highly improbable —though not entirely impossible— that the surname comes from the Czech place name Giavarino, a hypothesis that would imply a connection with those who served under Giovanni de' Medici in the war against the Turks of 1595–1597. The surname is concentrated in the Bergamo area, particularly in the localities of Calcinate and Ghisalba, with an isolated presence also in the Parma area.