Cardenas
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in Spanish: and Somerset so called from their situation on a river of provinces of Almeria and Logrono, so called from the this name, apparently from the Celt, root car- love, liking fern. pi. form of Sp
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/kardɛnas/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Cardenas is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Colombia than in any other country, where it is the 50th most common surname.
- PEPeru≈1 in 367(inferred from the name graph)
- COColombia≈1 in 399
- ECEcuador1 in 409
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- Colombia (inferred from the name graph)
- #447 (measured from records)
- 3 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 429 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 367 (inferred from the name graph)
≈120,000 people, est.
of 19M surnames
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Peru, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
‘person from Cardenas’, Almeria and Logrono, Spain (‘lands growing with thistles or other bluish-purple flowers’)
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.
How Cardenas is read(measured from records)
Cardenas is one spelling over 2 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- Spanish77%
and Somerset so called from their situation on a river of provinces of Almeria and Logrono, so called from the this name, apparently from the Celt, root car- love, liking fern. pi. form of Sp. edrdeno blue or blueish purple (LL (cf. Craddock), and meaning perhaps ‘pleasant stream’. cardinus, from carduus thistle; cf. Carding). Presumably the noun tierras ‘lands’ is to be understood, and the refer¬
as a nameThe Oxford Names Companion - The definitive guide to Surnames, First Names, and Place Names of the British Isles
provinces of Almerla and Logrono, so called from the fern, pi. form of Sp. cardeno blue or blueish purple (LL cardinus, from carduus thistle; cf. Carding). Presumably the noun tierras ‘lands’ is to be understood, and the reference is to land covered with bluish plants, e.g. thistles them¬ selves or vines.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
- English14%
‘person from Cardenas’, Almeria and Logrono, Spain (‘lands growing with thistles or other bluish-purple flowers’)
as a nameEncyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Lazaro, president, Mexico
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Cardenas counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CO Colombia | #50 | ≈120,000 est. | ≈1 in 399 | 77 | Cardenas | 186 |
| PE Peru | #52 | ≈87,000 est. | ≈1 in 367 | — | Cardenas | 134 |
| US United States | #492 | 77,652 | 1 in 4.3K | 78K | Cardenas | 429 |
| EC Ecuador | #63 | 41,334 | 1 in 409 | 41K | Cardenas | 79 |
| VE Venezuela | #142 | ≈36,000 est. | ≈1 in 788 | — | Cardenas | 99 |
| CL Chile | #156 | ≈24,000 est. | ≈1 in 752 | 2 | Cardenas | 128 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; the co-datosgov-candidates register; SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021); INEC — civil registry names. Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Cardenas is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Filipino, a surname from Spanish, common in Metro Manila, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija and Rizal
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In war, a surname from Spanish, common in Northern Samar
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Lázaro Cárdenasb. 1895MX51st President of Mexico
- Luis Miramontesb. 1925MXnot in their usual nameMexican chemist (1925–2072)
- Elsa Cárdenasb. 1935MXMexican actress
- Hector de Jesus Ruizb. 1945MXnot in their usual nameMexican businessman
- Tony Cárdenasb. 1963USAmerican politician
- Osiel Cárdenas Guillénb. 1967MXMexican drug lord incarcerated in a US federal prison
- Steve Cardenasb. 1974USAmerican martial artist
- Fernanda Castillob. 1982MXnot in their usual nameMexican TV porn actress
- Nery Brenesb. 1985CRnot in their usual nameCosta Rican sprinter
- Jorge Gutiérrezb. 1988MXnot in their usual nameMexican basketball player (born 1988)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 36 sources across 22 countries.
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Where does the name Cardenas come from?
- ‘person from Cardenas’, Almeria and Logrono, Spain (‘lands growing with thistles or other bluish-purple flowers’) Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Cardenas?
- A machine transcription gives /kardɛnas/ (IPA) for Spanish.
- What does the name Cardenas mean?
- In Spanish, and Somerset so called from their situation on a river of provinces of Almeria and Logrono, so called from the this name, apparently from the Celt, root car- love, liking fern. pi. form of Sp.
- In which country does Cardenas have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 123 thousand people named Cardenas in Colombia, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled cardenas.
- How common is the name Cardenas?
- In the United States, the national register counted 77,652 people named Cardenas in 2010, about 1 in 4.3 thousand residents.
- How common is Cardenas compared with other names?
- In Colombia, Cardenas is the 50th most common surname of 144,306 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Cardenas?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/cardenasThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Cardenas” — the 50th most common surname in Colombia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.