Their most common names are ursitori and ursitoare,[3] but variations appear locally, like ursători, ursoaie, ursońi, urzoaie,[4] ursite.
[9] According to Romulus Vulcănescu [ro], the term originates from the expression a ursi, from Latin ordior 'predeterminate, weave', also found in Modern Greek orizo and Bulgarian urisram.
[23] Likewise, in Romanian popular belief, the Ursitoare are three beings that come to weave the child's fate, each of them having separate functions: Torcătoarea, who furnishes the life thread; Depănătoarea, who spins it into the spindle, and Curmătoarea, who cuts it with scissors, representing the allotted time for the person.
[24][25] Scholarship indicates that similar beings (a trio of women that allot men's fates) also exist in South Slavic folklore, among the Serbians, Macedonians,[26] Slovenes,[27] Croatians, Bulgarians and Montenegrinians.
[28][29] In Bulgaria (also among Bulgarians in Moldova), there is the belief in орисници ("orisnitsi"), three women that come at night to bless the newborn child and decree their fate.