One of the most notable hypotheses of an Etruscan-Latin connection, namely Etruscan φersu : Latin persōna "mask of an actor", is not without its problems. The Etruscan word appears twice, both times painted on the wall of a tomb (Tomba degli Auguri) next to figures who appear to be participating in funerary games for the deceased. In the first instance, φersu is painted next to a masked figure who holds the leash of a black dog (?) attacking a man secured by ropes. In the second, the caption is painted beside a masked figure dressed in a red tunic and loincloth, who is either fleeing his pursuer or, less plausibly, performing a dance. Scholars who support the φersu : Latin persōna connection assume that persu means "masked figure".

Although the connection to the Latin word is attractive, persōna cannot come directly from φersu. One must posit an Etruscan adjective *φersuna "having to do with a masked figure" as an intermediate form and assume that the long vowel in the medial syllable of Latin persōna was modeled on other Latin words in -ōna /-o:na/. But even if an adjective form existed in Etruscan and was borrowed into Latin as persōna, it is necessary to acknowledge that the semantic path connecting the meaning of the Etruscan adjective and the Latin noun depends critically on the meaning assigned to the Etruscan caption—which, it must be remembered, is deduced from the two masked figures on the walls of the tomb. Other interpretations of the caption are possible.

Captions accompanying other painted figures in the tomb are explanatory in a way that the interpretation "masked figure" is not. For example, the word tevaraθ "judge, umpire" was painted beside a figure who presides over a wrestling match; the phrase apas taṇasar "companions, attendants (?) of the father" refers to two men standing on either side of the door to the underworld at the rear of the tomb. φersu might be better analyzed as an agent noun in -u and interpreted as "performer, entertainer, actor", cf. zicu "writer" <- zic "document". The figures labeled with the caption φersu were part of the entertainment at the funerary games, even though, from our perspective, in the case of φersu and the hound, the performance was a rather gruesome one. Following this interpretation, an adjective *φersuna would mean "having to do with a performer", etc. The question then becomes: Is it possible to propose a reasonable set of semantic changes connecting this meaning to that of Latin persōna?

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