The study e etymology alian surnames traces the origin e Turkish surname in Campania, the Italian region where the greatest concentration ople with this surname is currently found. In all aly, some 3,000 people are calculated with the surname TURCO, which places it at 538 in the ranking e most popular surnames. The history is particular surname mentions a noble offspring present in Basilicata, Liguria and Tuscany; unts in the Veneto and rds in Piemonte. Deepening the meaning and origin.

The authors agree that this surname derives from an ethnic nickname meaning "Turk, Muslim, non-Christian", applied with connotations of religious or cultural otherness.

R. Brondolo places the origin in northern Italy and notes that the nickname had the sense of "non-Christian, cruel, fierce".

V. Blunda studies it as a surname typical of Sicily, derived from the Sicilian dialectal word tùrcu. He notes that in Mediterranean speech the term was a generic denomination for the inhabitant of the Islamic East, and that as a nickname it could have been applied to someone who had been a captive of corsairs or presented physical features associated with that origin.