The authors agree that it is a surname of Ligurian origin, formed from a Genoese dialect nickname composed of sciacca —from the verb sciacà, "to trample, to crush"— and uga, "grape," with the meaning of "one who treads the grape." Both note its high frequency in the Genoa area.

E. De Felice adds that the nickname could also have had an allusive or ironic sense, not necessarily linked to the trade. E. Rossoni, for his part, specifies that the founder of the line could have been a wine-grower or grape-treader in the making of wine, and provides a concrete documentary fact: the transformation into a surname is recorded in Cagliari in 1729.