Cascio Name Study-1

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
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These are people with the last name Cascio, who can trace their origins to Corleone, Sicily.

There are a couple surnames prevalent in Corleone in the 1800s that are commonly confused with Cascio, as documented below. They are Lo Cascio and Castro. There are a few other surnames that I have not yet documented such confusion with: Caruso, Costa, Cuccio.

The two names Lo Cascio and Cascio would mean about the same thing to an Italian-speaking person, in much the same way that Colletto and Colletti would. "Lo" is an article. Colletto and Colletti are the singular and plural of the same name. Are you a Smith or one of the Smiths? Are you "Smith" or a Smith?

Castro is Latin for "castle." Does the confusion between Cascio and Castro come from this? Many of the records I'm reviewing are church records, written in Latin, and documenting the lives of people who are usually illiterate. While some of the clues I get from names commonly confused point to the way the names sound---Gutera and Vutera, Soldano and Giordano---this might also point to the name's origin. A relative who still lives in Sicily tells me that the sounds of these names, Cascio and Castro, are far more similar in Sicilian than in Italian.

Cascio or Lo Cascio

A few individual Cascios of Corleone, Sicily, in the 1800s are referred to variously as either Cascio or Lo Cascio.

• Giuseppe Cascio is known as Lo Cascio in the baptismal records of two of his children.

• Salvator lo Cascio is born and baptized on 14 June 1870, the son of Bernardo lo Cascio and Angela Morreale.

His sister Biagia (Blasia) Cascio is found in the same volume of San Martino baptismal records, the names in the same index.

I have found a couple of other individuals who are sometimes referred to as Cascio, and at other times as Lo Cascio: two of them are Mario Antonio and Biagio.

Cascio or Castro

A name even more frequently conflated with Cascio in these records is Castro. While most Cascios are never called Castro, and there are Castros who are never recorded as Cascio, a few are sometimes called by one name, and sometimes the other. For instance:

• Of the six children of Giovanni (b. c. 1811) and Rosalia la Rosa, four are baptized as Castro, a daughter marries in the civil record as Cascio, and a son as Castro.

• Spiridione (b. c. 1817) and his wife, Maria Carmela Chiazzisi, have three known children, of whom two are born as Cascio and one as Castro. Of the two born Cascio, one, Leoluca, goes on to marry as Castro. The one born Castro, Lucia, goes on to marry a man named Cristoforo Cascio.

• In one record of Antonino Castro (b. c. 1833), who is married to Rosalia Marino, they stand as godparents together and he is called Cascio, but in the four baptismal records of their own children, he is a Castro.

• Another Antonino Castro, born around the same time and married to Rosa Vernagallo, is called Cascio in one of their three children's records.

• One of the three children of Liborio Cascio (b. c. 1833) and Lucia Sciortino is erroneously recorded in baptismal records as Angela Castro.

• Lucia Cascio (b. c. 1834), is recorded in one of her five children's baptismal records as Castro.

• One of Leo Cascio's (b. c. 1839) three children with Liboria Catanzaro is baptized as Castro.

• One of the five children of Bernardo Cascio (b. c. 1842) and Nicolina Pomilla, in his civil death record, is recorded as Emmanuele Castro.

One individual, Biagio (b. c. 1797), is recorded as Castro in the birth of his daughter, Rosalia (1827) and as Lo Cascio in the birth of his son, Bernardo (1833). Both siblings go on to marry with different surnames.

See also The Cascio Family of Corleone, Sicily