I thought I had too much to drink last night, because at first glance I could not understand your posting. But I let it sink in, and now I think I've got it.
You have to be able to describe something, so that you can classify it. I think a classification is basically a set of statements that describe something, i.e. a human would be described by it's properties, etc.
So when we create something that will become an object in our code, we have a bunch of statements that describe it's properties, and we also have a bunch of methods that do things with the object, i.e. set a value of the object (i.e. it's name, size), get values, etc.
So by putting all this together (encapsulating) into a series of statements (variables and functions), we have created a classification that describes the object that will be created when using this bundule of code.
So I guess that is why it is refered to as a class, short for classification.
it is a group of statements that describe an object.