The authors agree that the surname is widely diffused throughout Italy. E. De Felice holds that it is generally the apocopated hypocoristic of jocular or polemical medieval nicknames, formed from mazza, a deverbal of (am)mazzare ("to club to death"). He notes that the origin is complex, since in the cases with a suffix several different etymons and processes of formation may converge and interweave. He indicates a greater frequency in Emilia-Romagna for the simple forms, while the compounds predominate in southern Italy.

E. Rossoni broadens the etymological possibilities: the surname may derive from some place name containing the element mazza, from a nickname, or from the medieval name of Germanic origin Matzo or Mazzo, documented in sources of 1286. F. De Laurentiis adds that nicknames and occupational names related to the mazza as an implement, tool or weapon of war may also have been at the base.

R. Brondolo, by contrast, favours the reading as an occupational name, derived from the stonecutter's tool, and links it mainly to northern Italy. For the form Mazzoni he further proposes an alternative derivation from (am)mazz(a)sogni, with the sense of "disturbing person".