What Does My Last Name Mean???

Question

I KNOW ITS AN ITALIAN NAME BUT NO ONE KNOWS WHAT IT MEANS!!! NICASSIO.

Answer 1

(1) First of al some info about the location where your name comes from:
It is a rare, yet typical name around the city of BARI the city of Bari, in South-East Italy (At the top of the "heel" of the Italian "Boot").

Here the mapping: http://gens.labo.net/it/cognomi/genera.html?cognome=NICASSIO&t=cognomi&s=N&z=4&x_r=1680&y_r=1280&k=FF

There the city:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari

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(2) Now, to the origins of the name:
As a genealogist, I would have first tipped for a diminutive of Domenico.

However, after having checked it up for you in some ancient Italian genealogy books, another possibility came out:

Around Bari, there is a tendency to add a "NI" in front of a name. For instance "CASTRO" becomes "NICASTRO", probably meaning the son of the Castro's. There is also a town of Nicastro near Catanzaro in the middle of the foot of the "Italian boot".

But there is no town or village called Nicassio in Italy. Thus, the point is that NICASSIO, a name from Bari probably comes from CASSIO, which is itself derived from the Latin Family name of CASSIA. (remember "Cassius Clay"?)

The meaning:
It relates to the work of a man who was splitting the bark of some trees, for example, in order to collect Cinnamon (which is the bark of a tree related to the laurel/bay tree), itself from the plant family of "Cassia".
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassia)

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(3)
If your name was NICOSSIA or NICOSIA, which is as well a quite common name in Southern Italy, there would be another explanation:
there is a town of Nicosia in Sicily,
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicosia%2C_Sicily)
and that is where the name Nicosia or misspelled Nicossia comes from.
(http://www.cognomiitaliani.org/cognomi/cognomi0016e.htm)

There is no proof that the name "Nicosia" is in any way related to the name of the capital of the Mediterranean Island of Cyprus, for the Western Europeans. In Greek, it is "Lefkosia", but in the rest of the word it is known as Nicosia. The name "Nicosia" appeared towards the end of the 12th century, when the city was owned and run by the Knights Templar. The Crusaders conquerors could not, or did not care, to pronounce the name Kallinikisis ("Beautiful Victory"), as the city was called at that time, and they tended to say "Nikosia", which they spelled as "Nicosia". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicosia)

I hope to have entertained you as well!

Answer 2

Nicassio? Looks suspiciously like a first name. probably derivated from the Greek Nike (Victory)

EDIT
I can't vouch 100% against the other gentleman, but since Bari is in the heart of the "Greater Greece" area of Italy (the part that was colonized by the Greek before Rome rose to prominence), a Hellenic derivation seems all the more likely, and the name looks suspiciously like the French "Nicaise", attested by a number of St Nicaise place names, which is generally ascribed to be derived from the Greek