Why call it "object literal" instead of "object variable"?

I believe "object literal" refers to the actual coma separated key:value pairs in the object, not the object itself. Just like an variable you have the variable name that you refer to as the variable, but the value would be the variable literal... the literal value of the variable. So an object literal would be the literal definition or key:value pairs of the object. But that is just my understanding thus far...

Literals: "You use literals to represent values in JavaScript. These are fixed values, not variables, that you literally provide in your script."

Object Literal: "An object literal is a list of zero or more pairs of property names and associated values of an object, enclosed in curly braces ({}). "

-- from MDN's definition of JavaScript Literals

I could see how this could be confusing because a variable has 2 parts so when we make, or instantiate, a variable we are doing multiple tasks. A variable represents something, including null or undefined. This something can be a type of specific container. These containers are Strings, Numbers, Booleans, Arrays, Regular Expressions and Objects. The containers are created by using specific syntax or characters. A couple of these methods are using square brackets to create an Array or curly brackets to create an Object. The containers are filled by assigning values. For example, A String is created with a set of quotation marks and assigned a value of some characters between them - "This is a String."

We may define a variable by giving it a name, or identifier, (var myArray) then reference something to it ( place an equals sign (=) then create a container ( an Array in this case - [] ) then between the brackets we insert our values ( 'Literals', 'Variables', 'Objects'). Which altogether looks like, var myArray = ['Literals', 'Variables', 'Objects'];. The phrase, ['Literals', 'Variables', 'Objects'], is an Array Literal.

The 2 parts of a Variable are Identifier and Literal which are separated by an equal sign: var [Identifier] = [Literal];

An "object literal" and an "object variable" are different concepts. An "object literal" is the object itself and it's contents, whereas an "object variable", in my opinion, would be the variable that is assigned to the object literal. Therefore, an "object variable" contains an "object literal" as well as an identifier for the literal.