"Persister" or "Persistor"?

Computer science uses the term "persistence" to describe, basically, data that sticks around after the device is turned off. The corresponding verb is "to persist".

What I'm looking for is a noun to describe the object doing the persisting. Should it be persister or persistor? And more importantly, why?

"Persister" is actually recognized by the dictionary and the spell-checker, so it would seem to be the obvious choice. It is also far more common on a NGram comparison. However, most of the uses appear to be education-related (one who persists with their education) or biology-related, not computer-related.

On the other hand, a Google search for "persistor" turns up mainly computer science results, like Persistor.Net and mongo-persistor. Personally, this usage feels like a more intuitive spelling, perhaps due to the correspondence with "actor".

I know from this related question about -er and -or that both are valid suffixes to form an "agent noun" and that -er is more common in English. But does that make -er more correct in this case? Is there some linguistic reason driving the more prevalent use of -or in computer science circles, or is it simply a stylistic choice?

Solution 1:

I don't know that this is supported by any authority, but I feel that "persister" means "something that persists", whereas "persistor" means "something that provides persistence".

That said, I am a computer professional and this may just be in the realm of jargon.

Solution 2:

I know this is an old question, but it's one that I had too. Given the definition of persistor from Wiktionary:

(sociology) A person who persists in unsocial behavior

and the definition of persist (where the noun is "persister") from Dictionary.com:

to continue steadfastly or firmly in some state, purpose, course of action, or the like, especially in spite of opposition, remonstrance, etc.

while I kind of prefer the -or suffix for it's computer science-y feel, I'm going with "Persister" in my code because 1) the definition fits (i.e., continuing in state) and 2) the colloquial meaning of "persistor" (unsocial behavior) gives the word a negative connotation.