Lil Bub is probably more famous than Martin Van Buren. Think about it. A cat is more famous than a United States president.

Lil Bub’s rise to fame might be due to our tendency to anthropomorphize our pets, which means giving human characteristics to animals or inanimate objects. It’s why we name our cats Sally and Bella, but it would just sound really strange to call a human a Fluffy.

On one hand, this can be detrimental to an animal’s wellbeing—if we take a wild animal out of its natural habitat and force it to do human things (like wear cute clothing), then it could stress the animal out.

On the other hand, when we think of cats in human ways it “renders [cats] worthy of moral care and consideration,” according to a study in Current Directions in Psychological Science.

Basically, naming cats helps us empathize.

It’s the same reason why we name hurricanes. According to the study’s researchers:

“The naming of hurricanes and storms—a practice that originated with the names of saints, sailors’ girlfriends, and disliked political figures—simplifies and facilitates effective communication to enhance public preparedness, media reporting, and the efficient exchange of information.”

Naming cats is somewhat of a recent practice. We didn’t always used to give cats human names—or any sort of name—at all.

According to a post by Egyptian historian and Reddit user tweedy_impertinence in the Ask Historians community, cats in ancient Egypt were simply called—cats. Creative, right?

“Incidentally, the word for cat is mjw in ancient Egyptian, pronounced rather adorably as mioo,” said the user who referenced More Ancient Egyptian Names of Dogs and Other Animals.

While naming cats personal names was rare in Ancient Egypt, it wasn’t unheard of, explains tweedy_impertinence.