The authors agree that this surname is peculiar to Sardinia and derives from the Sardinian term cannas, plural of kanna, meaning "reed". Its origin is linked, frequently, to place names that allude to places where that plant abounded.

E. De Felice notes that the surname belongs specifically to the southern area of Sardinia and that its formation almost always passed through a place name, that is, that the name of a place with reeds became a surname.

E. Rossoni specifies the etymological chain: the Sardinian cannas comes from the Latin canna, which in turn derives from the Greek kànna. He also provides historical documentation: the surname appears in the Peace of Eleonora of 1388 and in several Condaghi —medieval administrative registers— of the 11th to 13th centuries, which confirms its presence in Sardinia since the Middle Ages.