Selvetti is an Italian surname of patronymic or plural type, derived from the medieval personal name Salvetto, an affectionate diminutive form of the old name Salvo (from the Latin Salvus, "safe and sound," auspicious and of Christian devotion). The surname is formed on the patronymic Salvetto with a vowel shift from Salvetti to Selvetti, a phenomenon habitual in regional Italian. The forms Salvi and Salvo are well documented throughout Italy, with important nuclei in the centre and south, while the variants with a diminutive suffix (Salvetti, Selvetti, Salvini) are more common in the centre-north.

The presence of the surname extends also to Corsica and southern France, areas historically linked to Ligurian-Tuscan Italy by medieval and modern migrations. Although the surname does not appear as an autonomous entry in the classical Italian onomastic dictionaries, the genealogical repertories document it as a recognized variant of the Salvo-Salvetti group.