The authors agree that this surname derives from the medieval Germanic personal name Vivaldus, documented already in the 12th century. E. Rossoni notes that this name evolved towards Vivaldo and then towards Ubaldo. V. Blunda specifies that the Germanic root combines wig ("combat, fight") and vard ("guard, custody"), and places the surname in Sicily. For his part, E. De Felice documents the Latinized form Vivaldus in Genoa in 1156 and proposes that the name is of Franco-Germanic tradition, with a second element linked to -wald ("powerful", "chief"), adding that by folk etymology it ended up being associated with the Latin root vivus ("alive"), which reinforced its use as an auspicious name in the Middle Ages.

The authors recall the figure of Saint Vivaldo, a hermit of the late 13th century, whose cult may have favoured the persistence of the personal name and, with it, the formation of the surname. Among the documented variants are Vivaldi, more widespread, with a presence in Liguria, Trentino and the upper Tyrrhenian Tuscany; Vivaldo, an archaic form located in the Liguria area on the border with the Cuneo area; and Vivaldini, with the patronymic suffix -ini, typical of the Mantua area.

Rossoni and Blunda highlight the figure of the composer and violinist Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741), born in Venice. Blunda adds that he was a priest and choirmaster of the Ospedale della Pietà, that he composed more than five hundred instrumental concertos, and that his work Le quattro stagioni, published in Amsterdam in 1725, exerted a decisive influence on Johann Sebastian Bach and on the later generation of 18th-century composers.