The authors agree that this surname derives from the Greek personal name Ἀνίκητος, meaning "invincible". The form is built with the privative prefix a- applied to the root of the verb nikáō, "to conquer", and functioned as a name of positive connotation before becoming a surname.

G. Rohlfs places its presence in the Basilicata region —specifically in Satriano di Lucania—, as well as in Sicily and Naples, and frames it in the context of the Byzantine influence in southern Italy and the diffusion of the anthroponym in the southern Greek-speaking sphere. E. Rossoni also notes it as a southern surname. V. Blunda documents it as a Sicilian surname and stresses that its use as a personal name later spread through the onomastics of southern Italy until it became a surname through family transmission.