The authors agree that this surname derives from place names compounded with the element torre, such as Torre Archirafi (in the province of Catania), Torre Normanna (in the province of Palermo), Torregrotta (in the province of Messina), Torre Cesarea (in the province of Lecce) and Torre Santa Susanna (in the province of Brindisi), among others.

F. De Laurentiis specifies that the form Torrisi is very frequent in the Catania area and that the surname results from the transformation into a surname of place names formed on torre and its derivatives, including Torre, Torri and La Torre. For his part, F. Miranda adds that the surname could have alluded to a first bearer who lived in a tower, who was the guardian of a tower or who lived in the vicinity of one of those localities.

As for its geographical distribution, Miranda notes that Torrisi, together with its variant Turrisi, is typical of the Catania area. It is present in Sicily in a concentrated way —in the Catania, Enna, Syracuse, Messina and Palermo areas—, with zones of more occasional presence in Lombardy, Lazio, Piedmont, Liguria, Veneto and Emilia-Romagna. E. Rossoni confirms that Torrisi is specific to the Catania area, while Turrisi extends also to the Salento area —that is, the southernmost zone of the Apulia region, in southern Italy.