What is "opiter"

Opiter ( or ) is a Latin praenomen, or personal name, which was used primarily during the early centuries of the Roman Republic. It is not usually abbreviated, but is sometimes found with the abbreviation Opet., apparently based on an archaic spelling of the name. No examples of the feminine form are known, but it was probably Opiternia or Opitria. The name gave rise to the patronymic gens Opiternia, and perhaps also gens Opetreia.

The praenomen Opiter was used by the patrician gentes Verginia and Lucretia, and several prominent members of these gentes with this name held important magistracies during the first two centuries of the Republic. The name must also have been used at one time by the ancestors of gens Opiternia. As with other rare praenomina, Opiter may have been more frequently used in the countryside. However, writing in the 1st century BC, Marcus Terentius Varro described it as obsolete.