The authors agree that the surname most probably originates in the Latin gens Cascia (Cassia), documented in Roman inscriptions, although they also note as a possible starting point the dialectal term cascio, with the sense of "cheese dairy" or "cheese".

F. Miranda adds a third route: the existence of a place name Cascio, a hamlet of the comune of Molazzana, in the Garfagnana, province of Lucca, which could have given rise to the surname independently. Miranda places the greatest concentration of the surname in the Palermo area —with comuni such as Polizzi Generosa, Castelbuono and Cefalù—, and notes presence in the Trapani, Agrigento, Catania, Messina and Enna areas.

E. Rossoni specifies that the first traces of its transformation into a surname in Palermo go back to the 17th century, and characterises the surname as peculiar to the northwest of Sicily.

Outside Sicily, Miranda records clusters in Piedmont, Lombardy, Lazio, Tuscany and Campania, which suggests that the surname presents independent origins in different regions of Italy.