The authors agree that this surname derives from the medieval personal name Recupero (or Recuperus), of a gratulatory character, given to a child born after the loss of a previous one. The underlying idea is that this child represented the "recovery" of a lost good, that is, a consolation and a form of family restitution.

F. De Laurentiis notes that the surname is diffused in southern Italy, with a high frequency in eastern Sicily, and that it was formed from the term ricupero, with the sense of "reacquisition of a lost good."

F. Miranda broadens the semantic analysis and indicates that the name also had an auspicious sense of recovery of good and happiness, being equivalent to "received again in substitution." He adds that the surname, although of predominantly Sicilian rootedness and present in all the provinces of that region, has branched out to other regions of Italy: Lombardy, Piedmont, Lazio, Apulia, Veneto and Calabria. Within Sicily, the areas with the greatest presence are those of Messina, Catania, Syracuse and Enna.