E. Rossoni and V. Blunda agree that the surname derives from the dialectal word caicco or caiccu, which designates a small rowing boat used mainly for fishing, and that its transformation into a surname would have responded to a trade: the founding ancestor would have been a fisherman, maker of these boats or coastal carrier.

Regarding the origin of the word, Rossoni notes that it comes from the Greek kaiki, which in turn derives from the Turkish qayk. Blunda specifies that the Turkish form is kayık, and that it reached the Sicilian lexicon through Levantine trade, as a reflection of the maritime exchanges that connected the island with the ports of the Aegean and North Africa in the modern period.

As for the geographical distribution, Rossoni places the variant Caico in the Agrigento area, and the variant Caicco, probably, in the Cosenza area. Blunda, for his part, characterises the surname as peculiar to Sicily in general.