The authors agree that this surname has a Sicilian dialect origin and derives from the term pulèu / puleu, which designates pennyroyal or wild mint (Mentha pulegium), an aromatic plant of medicinal use known in Latin as pulegium. V. Blunda notes that the dialect term preserves the Sicilian phonetic result of that Latin word, and that the surname could have originated in a nickname applied to someone linked to the gathering or curative use of the plant.

F. Miranda broadens the etymological hypotheses and proposes two additional alternatives: that the surname could derive from an apocopated form of the demonym Apuleo, in the sense of "coming from Apulia," or else from the Latin term puleium, with the meaning of "pulley." Miranda also places the surname geographically: its presence is mostly Sicilian, with consistent nuclei in the provinces of Palermo, Catania, Agrigento and Messina, and also in the Enna area, in localities such as Gagliano Castelferrato, Pietraperzia, Regalbuto and Centuripe. Outside Sicily, it appears in a scattered way in regions such as Lombardy, Calabria, Lazio, Piedmont, Campania, Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna and Liguria.