That naming matches exactly the OWL language. in OWL classes are
declared logically equivalent via owl:equivalentClass and individuals
are denoted as the same entity via owl:sameAs
And "things" are not classes but real world entities that have an identity.
I doubt you'll get a hint for
There is a method OntClass#listEquivalentClasses that returns an
extended iterator. There is no corresponding method for an Individual,
e.g. no Individual#listEquivalentIndividuals. There is a method
OntResource#listSameAs.
In a test (Jena 3.17), classes that had been declared equivalent