Why is the superclass named as 'Object'

A question so simple , yet confusing to decifer , why is the superclass of all classes in java named as 'object' class ? It could be anything else , any particular reason/thoughts for the same would be helpful.

TIA,
Vijay

I always thought that in object-oriented programming all objects are objects so you call them Object . . .

What would be a better name in OO-language that the superclass called Object?
Interesting question, for exact answer you should ask James Gosling though.

Not all OO languages have a single common superclass of all objects, but where they do so, "Object" seems a pretty good name for it!

Objects will be Objects.

I'm pretty sure if I invented an OO language with a single ancestor at the top, I'd call it BOB. The framework I use has BOB-Objects and that just makes me very happy. Yup, BOB.

BOB, would probably raise the ire of Microsoft (although they might be trying to forget all about BOB, who knows?), so I'd probably choose Fred.

Microsoft BOB... now that was a cool name for a product.

What did it do again? ...

Henry

MS BOB was a competitor to IBM TopView wasn't it?

It ts very good question and must be ansarable.Every class extends Object class Because of 2 resion,one is for security resion & other for utilities purpose.If a class Extends Object class ,then after jvm,cosider this program is secure program(thats the only way that jvm know program compile by bug free compiler or bug compiler).Other is about the utilites,thats G.C,&other functionalites.

Originally posted by marc weber:
Objects will be Objects.

Objects will not be Objects (all the time).

Java is an object oriented language, so everything we create in Java is-an object.

Inheritance represents an is-a relationship with all parents, or specifically, ancestor classes. Since all classes in Java inherit, at the top of the tree, from a class called object, then we can honestly say that EVERY class we create is-an Object.

I just love the elegance of Java. It's everywhere, even in the little things like the Object class.

Originally posted by Vijay Gopinath:
It could be anything else

"Object" seems the most logical to me. Are there other possibilities that make more sense to you?

I'm torn between Doohickey and Thingamajig.

How about BaseClass? After all it is a class, not an object.

Still, it really doesn't matter why they named it Object.

It is interesting that they didn't have to have a common ancestor to everything if they didn't want to. In a strongly typed language it's good to have a place like this to put useful behavior. Look at the methods on Object. Could they have implemented these some other way without a single ancestor?

What about extending from a common class called Problem.

Then we could say: everything we code in Java is-a Problem

What else? Nuisance? ThingForSomeoneElseToDO? Challenge?

Originally posted by Rusty Shackleford:
How about BaseClass? After all it is a class, not an object.

Last time I checked, every class was a class, but its instances are objects, and classes tend to new named after their objects, not? Actually, if we are suggesting new names, I like "Om", the sound that created the universe. Why not say it now, "Ooommmm". Ah...