The authors agree that the surname is linked to the noble family of the Traversari, documented in Ravenna from the 9th century. E. De Felice holds that the surname was formed as an ethnic name from the place name Traversara, in the Ravenna area, and notes that this family descended from a branch of the Dukes who administered the county of Traversara di Bagnacavallo.

E. Rossoni offers a complementary perspective and proposes two possible etymons of an occupational character: the medieval Latin traversarius, referring to the producer of beams for construction, and the late Latin transversa, a deverbal of transversare, linked to the trade of maker of crossbeams. Rossoni highlights that in the 13th century the Traversari constituted a rich noble lineage in Ravenna and the Pesaro area, and mentions as a notable figure the Camaldolese theologian Ambrogio Traversari (1386–1439), papal legate to the Council of Basel.

Rossoni also records the variant Traversani, today practically extinct, which could derive from the medieval French term traversain —a transversal wooden beam— or from its medieval Latin equivalent traversanus. The surname Traversari is documented mainly in the Ravenna, Forlì and Brescia areas, with a presence also in those of Pistoia, Prato, Florence and Grosseto, and in some localities of Sardinia.