Not all HN visitors are native English speakers and in some languages "it" doesn't construct well with verbs, thus thought frameworks forms through usage of him/her. Nothing more to see I suppose.

It's a male name, and gendered pronouns can be hard for foreign speakers at times, irrespective of proficiency level. I wonder if you're overthinking this?

Every french person I've talked to IRL, for example, calls Claude "him." It's partly a language thing.