It’s etymologically indicated that it’s descendent from hot pot, which is also a method of cooking several ingredients in one pot and serving from that pot vs serving individual bowls. It’s called a hot pot because it’s served from a pot that is hot (as it’s the cooking vessel you boiled everything in). Not because the resulting soup is hot. Itself descendent from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-au-feu (pot on fire)and similar European dishes (not the Chinese version which we usually mean when we say hot pot nowadays).
It’s etymologically indicated that it’s descendent from hot pot, which is also a method of cooking several ingredients in one pot and serving from that pot vs serving individual bowls. It’s called a hot pot because it’s served from a pot that is hot (as it’s the cooking vessel you boiled everything in). Not because the resulting soup is hot. Itself descendent from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-au-feu (pot on fire)and similar European dishes (not the Chinese version which we usually mean when we say hot pot nowadays).