[1][2][3] The praenomen Sertor was used by the plebeian gentes Mimesia, Varisidia, Vedia, and perhaps Resia, and must once have been used by the ancestors of the gens Sertoria, whose most distinguished member was the Roman general Quintus Sertorius.
The name was familiar to the scholar Marcus Terentius Varro, who described it as an antique praenomen, no longer in general use by the 1st century BC.
As with other praenomina, it may have been more common, and survived longer, in the countryside; at least one example from Umbria dates to Varro's time or later.
[8][9] Chase believed that the praenomen was probably of Umbrian origin, and was the equivalent of the Latin word servator, meaning "protector" or "preserver".
[10] An inscription belonging to the obscure gens Resia gives the praenomen Fertor, which some scholars amend to Sertor.