The authors agree that the surname has roots in southern Italy, with a documented presence in Campania, Molise and Puglia, and an additional area in Sardinia. E. Rossoni notes that the Sardinian core would derive from the archaic Sardinian term maxia, with the meaning "medicine, magic or spell", and that the surname appears in medieval Sardinian documents, including among the signatories of the Peace of Eleonora of 1388. For the areas of southern Italy, Rossoni proposes two hypotheses: that it would derive from modifications of the Latin word magister, indicating the trade of craftsman of the founder of the line, or else from the term of Spanish origin masia, with the meaning "farm or farmstead".

S. Vannozzi, citing Paolucci, specifies that the surname is typical of Colle Sannita, in the Benevento area (Campania), where it is recorded from the end of the 16th century. On the etymological level, he proposes that it derives from the term proper to southern Italy and to Puglia mascio, the equivalent of mastro ("craftsman"), used in the feminine as a nickname to designate the wife of a craftsman. This reading agrees in essence with Rossoni's hypothesis about the craft trade, though Vannozzi specifies it with greater dialect detail.