E. De Felice notes that this surname derives from place names frequent in northern Italy and in Tuscany: Strada —documented in the Savona, Reggio Emilia, Forlì, Trento, Florence and Arezzo areas— and its variants Stra, in the Verona and Venice areas, and Stradella, in the Pavia, Parma and Mantua areas, among other localities.

R. Brondolo offers a complementary perspective of a social character: the surname would originally have designated the inhabitant who lived next to the main street of the borough, thus fulfilling an identifying function within communities where numerous families lived together.