E. Rossoni places this surname in eastern Sicily and proposes that it could derive from a deformation of the Latin cognomen Lucullus.

V. Blunda offers a different explanation of dialect root: the surname would come from the Sicilian word juculànu, meaning "playful, jesting, cheerful", whose etymon goes back to the Latin ioculator, "jester, itinerant entertainer". According to Blunda, it would have arisen as a nickname applied to a person of festive and witty character, and later became a surname. The variant Iocolano would reflect the u/o vowel alternation in internal position.