G. Rohlfs places this surname in the southern Grecanic sphere, with a presence in the city of Reggio Calabria and its province —including Montebello, Palmi, the Bova area and Mèlito—, besides being very common in Sicily. According to Rohlfs, the surname survives in Greece under the form Βαδαλᾶς, and its ultimate etymon is the Arabic abdu-llah, meaning "servant of God".

P. Durante proposes instead a Greek origin, relating it to the term bathos, with the sense of "digger". This etymology is independent of the Arabic one and does not coincide with that of Rohlfs; both proposals coexist without a synthesis being able to be established between them.