The authors agree that this is a typically Sicilian surname whose origin goes back to a nickname or occupational term derived from Arabic. E. De Felice notes that it comes from the Arabic mahlug, adapted in Sicilian as macalùggiu or macalùsciu, with the meaning "cleaned cotton" (from halaga: "to hull, to clean"), and also with the sense of "servant, freed or manumitted slave".

F. Miranda agrees on the Arabic root and on the double meaning, but adds that the surname also appears under the variants Macalusi, Macalusso and Maccaluso. He cites Piccitto in specifying that the Sicilian term refers to cotton "cleaned and hulled of its seed", and gives the Arabic form mahlus as the designation of the freedman, that is, the slave to whom liberty had been restored. Miranda also mentions the variant Malauggiu as an alternative dialect form.