F. Miranda classifies this surname as ethnic — that is, derived from the name of a city or place — and interprets it as a variant of Pisani, both tracing back to the place name Pisa. According to Miranda, the origin of that city has been the subject of different traditions: Pliny attributes it to the Teuti or to Pelops, king of the Pisei, thirteen centuries before Christ; other historians derive it from the Etruscan pise, which would mean "river mouth." Miranda notes that the surname is widely diffused throughout Italy, concentrated above all in southern Italy and on the islands — Sardinia, Campania, Sicily, Calabria, and Apulia — but also in the center-north: Lombardy, Piedmont, Lazio, Liguria, and Tuscany. In Sicily it is documented in all the provinces, with a greater presence in the areas of Catania, Caltanissetta, Syracuse, Agrigento, Trapani, and Palermo; in the area of Enna, it is recorded in the municipalities of Enna, Piazza Armerina, Pietraperzia, Barrafranca, and Catenanuova.

G. Rohlfs offers a different and more specific reading for the southernmost part of Apulia. For Rohlfs, the surname is of Greek-Byzantine origin and means "of Pisa," but is formed with the Greek suffix -anòs. Its presence in that zone — particularly in the province of Lecce, in localities such as Andrano, Gallipoli, Lecce, Morciano, and Ugento, and also in Taranto — reflects the influence of Byzantine colonization in the Grecìa Salentina, the Greek-tradition subzone within the Salento area, the southernmost part of Apulia. Both scholars agree that the surname alludes to a geographic origin from Pisa, but differ in emphasis: Miranda treats it as an ethnic surname of general scope throughout Italy, while Rohlfs analyzes it specifically as a Greek-rooted form anchored in the far south of the Italian peninsula.

It is also recorded, more concisely, as deriving from the town of Pisa, in Tuscany.