The authors agree in noting a possible derivation from the place name Lubiana, the Italian form of the Slovene Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.

E. Rossoni further proposes several alternative readings. The first links the surname to the Latin delubrum ("temple"), from which, by aphaeresis, the form Lobra and its vowel variants would derive. In support of this hypothesis he notes that in Massalubrense, in the province of Naples, the church of Santa Maria della Lobra was raised over an ancient pagan temple, and that the term lubrense was historically an attribute of the local bishop. A second hypothesis points to a Gothic derivation, by aphaeresis of names such as Adubrano or Alubrano, with a probable origin in the area between Caserta and Naples. Rossoni stresses that the surname is very frequent in the region of Campania, although it is also found in the rest of Italy.