The surname is held to have an ethnic origin and to be related to the ethnonym of the Goths, probably by way of the Lombard name Gauso or Goizo. This term could allude, in its sense of "flow of liquids", to the sacrifices offered to the Germanic gods, or to the proximity to the waters of the ancestral Scandinavian homeland. Its presence is concentrated in the Lombardy plain.

E. Rossoni notes that the surname is typical of the Bergamo area, especially of Ciserano and its surroundings. Rossoni further documents its fixing as a surname in Verdello from the second half of the 14th century, when a certain Pietro known as Rosso Goisis is recorded as a representative of the municipality of Verdellino.