The authors agree that this surname derives from a nickname or occupational name linked to the dialect term mànganu (or màngano, in Calabrian and Sicilian), which designated a machine used in textile work. E. De Felice describes it as an instrument of cylinders for smoothing and softening cloth, and notes that in eastern Sicily the surname may also reflect the place name Màngano, in the province of Catania.

F. Miranda broadens the etymological origin and traces it back to the Greek mánganon and to Late Latin mánganum. He adds that in the villages of Etna the term mangano designated specifically the instrument for extracting the silk from the cocoons of the silkworms, and that in a figurative sense it could also allude to a bodily characteristic of the bearer of the byname. Miranda further mentions the locality of Guardia Mangano, a hamlet of Acireale, in the province of Catania.

V. Blunda, from a Sicilian dialect perspective, stresses the central role of this implement in the silk workshop and proposes that the surname could have originated either in a nickname applied to the craftsman who operated it or in the occupational designation of the specialist in spinning. The surname is proper to southern Italy, with a majority presence in Sicily —especially in the Catania, Palermo and Messina areas— and secondary cores in Calabria and Campania.