Cárdenas is a locational surname originating in La Rioja, Spain.

In Spain, Cárdenas is the 287th most frequently surname, accounting for 0.37% of the population.

It is the 296th most popular surname in the Spanish autonomous community of Catalonia.

[1] This habitational surname derives from places named Cárdenas in the provinces of Almería, in Andalusia, and Logroño, in La Rioja.

It comes from the feminine plural of cárdeno, meaning "blue" or "bluish purple", by way of the Latin cardinus, from carduus ("thistle").