The authors agree that this is a surname of Sicilian origin. The areas of greatest concentration are found in Agrigento —with a presence in localities such as Favara and Canicattì—, as well as in the Enna, Caltanissetta, Palermo and Trapani areas.

On its etymology, the authors agree in noting two main hypotheses. The first points to the Sicilian dialect term pirrèra, 'stone quarry', derived from the Old French perrière; in this sense, V. Blunda specifies that the term designates the place of stone extraction, frequent in the rural Sicilian landscape of limestone soils, and that the surname could have originated in a microtoponym applied to one who lived near an active quarry. The second hypothesis, noted by E. Rossoni and F. Miranda, relates it to a nickname of Greek base, derived from the ancient word pyra ('bonfire, fire'), possibly linked to the trade of the first bearer.

Rossoni and Miranda also mention as a possible origin the place name Pirrera, a district of the comune of Lipari, in the Aeolian Islands, although both consider this derivation less probable than the previous ones. Miranda adds that the surname, besides in Sicily, appears with a smaller presence in Lombardy, Piedmont, Liguria, Tuscany, Calabria, Sardinia and Lazio.