An honest question:
Why is 64 bit x64
and 32 bit x86?

Wikipedia says:

The term "x86" came into being because the names of several successors to Intel's 8086 processor end in "86"(...)

x86 comes from the 8086, 286, 386, 486, 586
There was a whole range of microprocessors that belonged to the same instruction set family.. That's why the name stuck

And if I'm not mistaken, AMD was first to market a 64bit chip to The Rest Of Us, so it used to be that Intel was x86 and AMD x64, reliably. It took a very long time for me to upgrade my 64-bit Intel machine to a 64-bit kernel because, "I don't have an AMD chip, so x64 doesn't apply to me."

@fmlfmlfml actually no, intel released 64bit cpu first but AMD made 64bit cpu that could still run 32bit software, and yes 64bit mips cpu is ancient compared to amd or intel

@g-m-f yes

@g-m-f
Still remember whe I threw away my 386 (16 bits) to recycling... it had to be done but it were MY first computer.