Originally Posted By: zmjezhd
Pretoria was named for its founder's father. Their surname was Pretorius.

Which I imagine was probably a Latin surname or nom de plume or academic name taken on sometime in the 15th to 17th centuries when it was fashionable so to do, especially by scholars. So indirectly, yes it does eventually come from Praetorian I would guess.

Not being bothered to look it up myself, does the word have anything to do with pretend, pretentious, etc? Or is the Latin pretensio completely unrelated?