Why is a pseudo-class so called?

In CSS terms, a class is a selector that starts with a full stop, e.g.

.foo { ... }

It would be used in the form

<div class="foo">

This use of "class" is more in the sense "a set or category of things having a common characteristic and differentiated from others by kind or quality", rather than borrowing from OO terminology.

A pseudo class is "not quite a real one" as the user agent defines when and/or how much content qualifies (like :hover, :active, etc).

It's pseudo because you didn't make it; the browser 'created' it and allows you to set it to change the look of the link when it's in that state.

From the w3c CSS2 selector spec:

CSS introduces the concepts of pseudo-elements and pseudo-classes to permit formatting based on information that lies outside the document tree.

• Pseudo-elements create abstractions about the document tree beyond those specified by the document language. For instance, document languages do not offer mechanisms to access the first letter or first line of an element's content. CSS pseudo-elements allow style sheet designers to refer to this otherwise inaccessible information. Pseudo-elements may also provide style sheet designers a way to assign style to content that does not exist in the source document (e.g., the :before and :after pseudo-elements give access to generated content).

• Pseudo-classes classify elements on characteristics other than their name, attributes or content; in principle characteristics that cannot be deduced from the document tree. Pseudo-classes may be dynamic, in the sense that an element may acquire or lose a pseudo-class while a user interacts with the document. The exceptions are ':first-child', which can be deduced from the document tree, and ':lang()', which can be deduced from the document tree in some cases.

So basically, a pseudo-class is something you can attach a style to, but you never print it out yourself in the HTML. Also, a pseudo-clas can be aquired and lost depending on user interaction with the UI.