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I think it's the other way around.
Like you might call a bunch of mindless followers "sheep". We didn't name the animal after those people, we started using the word that way because it reminded us of the animal.
The etymology suggests that originally we just called livestock cattle (i.e. these are My animals, my property), and the name was so ubiquitous that when it came time to give the specific species a name, it stuck.
I just assumed otherwise, because that's pretty funny if it's true.