Unlike other query languages for graph databases such as Gremlin (https://tinkerpop.apache.org/gremlin.html) or AQL (ArangoDB), Cypher was built to have a syntax similar to SQL, in order to ease the transition for developers and data scientists used to the structured query language.
Like many tools in the Neo4j universe, Cypher's name comes from the movie The Matrix released in 1999: Neo is the main character. Apoc is also a character from this movie.