E. Rossoni puts forward two hypotheses about the origin of this surname. The first links it to a nickname, without specifying its semantic base. The second, which Rossoni considers more relevant, proposes that it would be a dialectal Italianisation of the French surname Chassepot, which designated the trade of tax collector. The surname is documented in the Naples area from at least 1400: in 1419, Giovanni Cacciapuoti made a donation to the church of San Giovanni a Campo, today of the Madonna delle Grazie, in Giugliano in Campania. Rossoni places it as typical of the Caserta and Naples areas.

F. De Laurentiis proposes instead a purely Italian analysis of the surname, composed of caccia ("the art of capturing or killing wild animals by means of traps, weapons and similar means") and puoti, understood as "power". From this combination two possible meanings as a nickname would derive: "the one who can hunt" or "the one who has the possibility of hunting", and alternatively, "the one who goes hunting for power". Both readings point to an origin in the sphere of nicknames, although with semantic bases different from those put forward by Rossoni.