E. De Felice considers that this surname derives from the given name Liberto, a reduced form (by aphaeresis) of Aliberto, a fairly widespread southern Italian variant of Alberto, with a presence especially in the region of Campania.

E. Rossoni proposes a different perspective: the surname is found throughout central and southern Italy and could have a very ancient origin, derived from the Latin cognomen Libertus or else from terms designating the social condition of the freedman, that is, the manumitted or liberated slave.

The two readings are not necessarily mutually exclusive: the first points to a derivation by way of a personal name of Latinized Germanic origin, while the second goes back directly to the legal and social vocabulary of Classical Latin.