Fact: Why do they call it oven? Because it comes from the Old English ofen "furnace, oven, chamber or receptacle in which food is baked or cooked by continuous heat radiated from the structure," from Proto-Germanic *ukhnaz (source also of Old Frisian, Dutch oven, Old High German ovan, German Ofen, Old Norse ofn, Old Swedish oghn, Gothic auhns), from PIE *aukw- "cooking pot" (source also of Sanskrit ukhah "pot, cooking pot," Latin aulla "pot," Greek ipnos), originally, perhaps, "something hollowed out." That's why.