E. Rossoni notes that the surname presents origins in the centre and south of Italy. Both Schiavone and its variant Schiavoni derive from the term sclavoni, which in central Italy designated the Croats, Slavs and Albanians who arrived on the Adriatic coast. Rossoni indicates that Schiavoni presents specific zones of presence in the Marche, Umbria, Lazio, Abruzzo and Molise, as well as in the Taranto area, and that the transformation into a surname is documented in Abruzzo and Apulia from the 15th century.

F. De Laurentiis proposes, on the other hand, that the surname would derive from schiavo, that is, from the word that in Italian designated the slave or the individual of Slavic origin, a hypothesis that is etymologically related to the same root that Rossoni notes, although without specifying further.