It's called Apache HTTP server because it's A Patchy HTTP Server.
https://www.mail-archive.com/fedora-list@redhat.com/msg06924...
>On Jul 16, 2008, Les Mikesell wrote:
>> Alexandre Oliva wrote:
>> Apache wasn't the original name.
>It was and it wasn't. It was indeed a bunch of patches on top of the (also younger) NCSA http server. That's where "a patchy http server" came from. But that was '90s already, some ten years after GNU started.