Prendergast (surname)

Prendergast is a Welsh and Irish surname.
Etymology.
This toponymic surname may derive from "prender" from a Germanic word for fire or conflagration (cf. brand) where the "b" became "p" due to fortition and "gast" (cf. geest) from a germanic word for wasteland or dry and infertile land meaning the location could have been a burn-beat area. Others think the name is a Saxonized form of Bryn y Gest from the Welsh bryn meaning hill and gest a lenition of "cest" which means belly or swelling or a deep glen between two mountains having but one opening. It could also lessly come from Pren-dwr-gwest, the inn by the tree near the water. The right etymology is probably Pen-dre-gast. The suffix ast (cf. gast) is of druidic origin like for the cromlech chamber tomb of Penllech yr Ast ("the chief slab of the bitch") or Llech-yr-ast ("Bitch's stone"), in Llangoedmor, Cardiganshire or Gwâl y Filiast ("Lair of the Greyhound Bitch") or Carn Nant-yr-ast or Llety'r Filiast or Twlc y Filiast. Alternatively, the name may come from a lost Flemish settlement near Ghent, known as Brontegeest. Pembrokeshire had a significant Flemish population by the twelfth century.
Variants.
Variants of Prendergast include: Pender, Pendergast, Prandergast, Brandergast, Pendergrass, Penders, Pendy, Pinder, Pinders, Pindy, Prender, Prendergrast, Prendergest, Prindergast, Pendergist and the (Gaelicised) de Priondargás.
In Britain.
The surname may be connected to one or more of three places in Britain: Prendergast, now a suburb of Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales; Prendergast, near Solva, also in Pembrokeshire, and; Prenderguest, near Ayton, Berwickshire, Scotland.
In Ireland.
In Ireland, Prendergast is regarded as a Hiberno-Norman name and is usually derived from a 12th-century Cambro-Norman knight, Maurice de Prendergast, who was born in Pembrokeshire and came to Ireland with the Earl of Pembroke, Richard "Strongbow" de Clare. Many of Maurice de Prendergast's immediate descendants lived in County Tipperary and southern Mayo. Some assumed the name Fitzmaurice at an early date and some of the Fitzmaurices were later known as MacMorris.