Cardinal Family History
Cardinal Name Meaning
French and English: from Old French Middle English cardinal ‘cardinal’ the church dignitary (Latin cardinalis originally an adjective meaning ‘crucial’). The surname was probably bestowed as a nickname on someone who habitually dressed in red or who had played the part of a cardinal in a pageant or who acted in a lordly and patronizing manner. English: possibly also an altered form of Carbonell . Reaney notes that Cardinal's Farm in Foxearth (Essex) is recorded as Carbonels in 1381 and Cardynals in 1577.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names 2nd edition, 2022