The authors agree that this surname is of toponymic origin, derived from the name of the locality of Maida, in the province of Catanzaro, in the region of Calabria. The original form alluded to "he who comes from Maida" and became a surname following the medieval practice of adopting the name of one's place of origin on joining a new community.

F. Miranda specifies that Maita is the variant without the prefix of Di Maita, and that the spelling with -i- is due to a dialect deformation or to a transcription error with respect to the form Maida. He further notes that Maida corresponded to the old Byzantine Maghida, which confirms the historical depth of the place name. Miranda documents the presence of the surname in the Enna area —with localities such as Enna, Aidone, Troina, Leonforte, Centuripe and Catenanuova—, as well as in the provinces of Catania, Agrigento, Messina and Palermo, and also in Lombardy, Piedmont, Tuscany, Veneto and Lazio.

Maita is held to be the Sicilian variant of Maida, possibly arisen through internal migratory processes or through changes of spelling in the registers. Surnames in Italy also notes the possible influence of the Arabic māʾidah ("laid table") in some areas of Sicily and Calabria during the Middle Ages, though not as the direct origin of the surname but as the cultural background of the region.