Héktōr is a derivative agent noun of the verb ékhein (archaic hékhein), "to have" or "to hold," from Proto-Indo-European *seɡ́ʰ-. The name would therefore seem to mean "holder" or "possessor" — perhaps emphasizing princely status — or "holding fast," fitting his conduct during the Argive siege of Ilium. In Aeolic poetry the form Éktōr appears; the same stem is an epithet of Zeus as the one who holds everything together.

The personal name was already in use in Mycenaean times: a Linear B tablet records a servant named E-ko-to. Georg Ferdinand Dümmler, followed by Moses I. Finley, proposed that the Homeric hero was partly based on an earlier Theban hero of the same name.

The sixth-century Christian chronicler John Malalas describes Hector as "dark-skinned, tall, very stoutly built, strong, good nose, wooly-haired, good beard, squinting, speech defect, noble, fearsome warrior, deep-voiced." The account attributed to Dares Phrygius calls him fair-complexioned and curly-haired, swift in movement, fierce and high-spirited, merciful to the citizens and deserving of love, and speaking with a slight lisp.

Homer portrays Hector as peace-loving and thoughtful as well as bold — a good son, husband and father, without darker motives. Homer describes his hair as kuáneos, "blue-black" or dark.

Hector is the first-born son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, heir to the Trojan throne. He marries Andromache, who bears him a son called Scamandrius by his parents but Astyanax ("lord of the city") by the people of Troy. Some later accounts give him further children, including Oxynios, Saperneios and Laodamas. Among his many siblings are Paris, Cassandra, Helenus, Deiphobus, Polyxena, Creusa and Troilus.

Throughout the war he is Troy's best fighter, loved by his people and feared by the Achaeans. He commands the Trojan army with subordinates including Polydamas and his brothers Deiphobus, Helenus and Paris. According to the Iliad he did not approve of the war that Paris's abduction of Helen had brought upon the city, yet he fights from a sense of duty and concern for his reputation.

Early in the war Hector killed the Greek champion Protesilaus in single combat, fulfilling a prophecy that the first Greek to land on Trojan soil would die. In the Iliad's Book 7, inspired by Helenus, he challenges any Greek to single combat; nine heroes volunteer and Ajax the Greater is chosen by lot. Hector cannot pierce Ajax's famous shield, but Ajax crushes Hector's with a rock and draws blood before Apollo ends the duel at sunset. The two exchange gifts: Hector gives Ajax his sword (later the weapon of Ajax's suicide), and Ajax gives Hector a war-belt that Achilles will later use to drag Hector's corpse.

In the tenth year, Hector scolds Paris for avoiding Menelaus and for having brought ruin on Troy. Before leading a counter-attack he meets Andromache and the infant Astyanax at the Scaean Gate; knowing that Troy is doomed and that his wife and son face death or slavery, he refuses her plea to stay within the walls, prays that Astyanax may one day be a greater warrior than his father, and returns to battle. Zeus tips the balance toward the Trojans; Hector breaches the Greek wall with a great stone, fights at the ships, and sets Protesilaus's ship ablaze after wounding Ajax's spear.

When Patroclus, wearing Achilles' armor, drives the Trojans back, Hector — with the aid of Apollo and Euphorbus — kills him and strips the armor. The dying Patroclus foretells Hector's death at Achilles' hands. Hector dons the stolen armor and rallies Troy; Zeus regards the act as insolent folly, though it strengthens Hector for a time.

After Achilles returns to battle and routs the Trojans, Hector remains outside the gates — partly from shame at having ignored Polydamas's counsel to retreat the night before. Achilles chases him three times around the walls. Athena, disguised as Hector's brother Deiphobus, tricks him into standing his ground. Hector proposes that the victor return the other's body for burial; Achilles refuses. Athena restores Achilles' missed spear unseen; Hector's own spear fails against the shield. Realizing he is doomed, he charges with his sword. Achilles strikes him in the collar bone, the one spot the stolen armor does not cover.

In his last words Hector begs for an honorable funeral and prophesies that Paris and Apollo will kill Achilles at the Scaean Gates. Achilles slits Hector's heels, threads through them the girdle Ajax had given him, and drags the corpse behind his chariot. For twelve days he mistreats the body, but Apollo and Aphrodite preserve it from dogs and decay. At the gods' command Priam comes by night to Achilles' tent, ransoms his son, and receives a twelve-day truce for the funeral. Even Helen mourns Hector, who had always been kind to her. The Iliad ends with his burial rites; Virgil's Aeneid later has the dead Hector appear to Aeneas in a dream during Troy's fall, urging him to flee.

Many modern scholars treat Hector as the Iliad's most sympathetic character. Richmond Lattimore wrote that he "forever captures the affection of the modern reader, far more strongly than his conqueror." His tenderness toward Andromache and Astyanax is often cited as what makes him tragic. Lattimore and Steven Farron read him as a naturally unwarlike man driven to fight by duty and fear of disgrace; Emily Wilson stresses that his pursuit of martial glory and dread of shame isolate him from the city's practical needs; James M. Redfield argues that it is not a moral flaw but aidos (shame, fear of disgrace) — Homeric culture's "emotional foundation of virtue" — that destroys him.

Scholars have also noted a tension between Hector's in-story reputation as Troy's most fearsome warrior and his mixed battlefield record (poor showings against Ajax and Diomedes, victory over Patroclus only with divine help, flight before Achilles). Explanations range from Homeric invention of a morally excellent but martially limited hero, to deliberate diminution by pro-Greek tradition, to a coherent tragic portrait of a home-loving man forced into a role he cannot fully sustain.

Later literature returns to him often: a lost masterpiece by the tragedian Astydamas; epigrams in the Greek Anthology; Limbo among the virtuous pagans in Dante's Inferno; a noble foil to Greek deceit in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida; and, in medieval romance, the former owner of Roland's sword Durendal.