E. Rossoni notes that this surname is typical of the south of the Milan area, and also of the Lodi and Cremona areas, all in Lombardy. According to Rossoni, it could derive from a name such as Vincigalli, meaning "the one who defeated the Gauls".

V. Blunda offers a different interpretation and places it as a Sicilian surname of Germanic root, derived from the compound Wis Gardi. According to Blunda, it would be formed by wis ("wise, prudent") and gardi ("enclosure, precinct"), with the joint meaning of "precinct of the wise" or "enclosure of the prudent". The root wis survived in the modern German weise and in the English wise, keeping the original sense of practical wisdom.

The two proposals are, then, geographically and etymologically divergent: Rossoni links it to Lombardy with a Latin-Romance base, while Blunda associates it with Sicily with a Germanic origin. Both hypotheses remain as possible non-exclusive interpretations, given that the surname could have independent stems of origin in different regions of Italy.