The authors agree that this surname is linked to the trade of barber, and that it is a surname proper to western Sicily, with a particular concentration in the Palermo area. They note that the base of the surname is the name of a trade which, in the past, also included the practice of phlebotomy and bloodletting.

E. Rossoni indicates that the surname would derive from a nickname related to that trade, or else from a founding ancestress who practised it. F. Miranda broadens this reading and specifies that the surname may have been tied both to the first (female) bearer of the surname and to the wife of a barber. Miranda further notes that the compounding of the surname with the definite article la is characteristic of southern Italy, and that La Barbera is one of the numerous variants of the base form Barbieri.

According to Miranda, the surname is present in every province of Sicily, with the greatest concentration in the Palermo, Agrigento, Trapani and Enna areas, and with isolated pockets in other regions such as Lombardy, Piedmont, Lazio, Campania, Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany and Calabria.