When I started OO programming many years ago I gained the impression that variables (if that is the right word) were either "primitives" (int, double, etc.) or first-class objects (String, JPane, etc.). This is reinforced by a recent answer on primitives in Java and C# (@Daniel Pryden: Are primitive types different in Java and C#?). However don't know whether C# ValueTypes are primitives, objects or some other beast such as second-class objects. I see that SO has only one use of the first-class tag so maybe it is no longer a useful term.
I did not find the Wikipedia article useful ("This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject."). I'd be grateful for a taxonomy and current usage of terms, primarily related to Java and C# (though maybe other languages will shed enlightenment).
Clarification: I'd like to understand the term first-class and what its range of use is.
The problem is that "first class object" is not a well defined concept.
The normal usage is that someone says that an "object" is a class of thing that should have all of the properties X, Y and Z. But there are other things that don't have all of those properties, but they are sort of object-ish. So we'll call the former "first class" objects and the rest not "first class" ... and may be not objects.
The problem is that there are any number of views on the properties that a thing needs to have to make it a "first class" object. And no prospect of the people with opposing views coming to a consensus. (For example, a Javascript language expert might argue strenuously that an object is only first class if it is template-based.)
The only really solid insights about "first-classness" will be those that you can glean from the respective language specifications for Java and C#. And they only really apply within the scope of the respective languages / type systems ... and not across multiple languages.
So "first class Java object" or "first class C# object" might be meaningful, but "first class object" taken out of context is not.
Well that's my opinion ...