E. Rossoni places this surname in the area comprising the provinces of Naples, Caserta and Benevento, in the region of Campania, and proposes that it derives from the place name Maddaloni, a locality in the Caserta area, whose name would have its origin in the Arabic word magdhal, with the meaning "fortress" or "fortification".

V. Blunda, by contrast, considers it a surname of Germanic root, derived from the personal name Mathal, linked to the root mahal, which designated the assembly of free men in ancient Germanic culture, where laws were promulgated, disputes judged and military chiefs elected. Through semantic evolution, this term gave rise to modern German Gemahl ("spouse"), with the sense of a public commitment. Blunda notes that the place name Maddaloni, in Campania, probably derives from this same root, and that the surname would have arisen as a toponymic designation from that place. This author records it as a Sicilian surname, in contrast to the Campanian distribution indicated by Rossoni.