Nardulli is a southern Italian surname, documented by E. Rossoni as typically of Apulia, with its main core in the Bari area, especially at Mola di Bari, Acquaviva delle Fonti and Gravina in Puglia, with presences also at Taranto and Castellaneta. There is also a core in the Naples area where the form Nardullo appears, probably due to a registration error for the main form.

Rossoni explains that Nardulli, together with the whole broad onomastic group of Nardo, Nardini, Nardin, Nardone, Nardoni, Nardiello and Nardinocchi, derives, whether directly or through affectionate diminutive, augmentative forms or dialect modifications, from the medieval Italian name Nardo. Nardo is in turn an aphetic form of names such as Leonardo (from the Germanic Leonhard, "strong as a lion"), Bernardo (from the Germanic Bernhard, "strong as a bear"), Reinardo (from the Germanic Raginhard, "strong counsel") and Mainardo (from the Germanic Maginhard, "powerful strength"), all of Germanic derivation with the root hardu (strong, hard).

The suffix -ulli, characteristic of the onomastics of the peninsular south, has a diminutive and patronymic value. The spelling Nardula, with a final a, usual in the Argentine civil registers, is a feminine variant or an Italianization of the surname Nardulli or Nardullo.