Time restricted makes sense to me.For me caloric restriction is not the focus. I can pack away a lot of calories even in a short window. The focus is more to do with giving your body longer breaks between digestion cycles. There is no chance to burn fat with frequent eating.
There’s no real reason except that the “intermittent fasting” terminology got used in popular books/videos/etc., so people got used to it. “Time-Restricted Eating” or TRE is often used in clinical/research contexts, usually to specifically describe fasting windows of less than 24 hours.
Edit to add: For example, this study uses “intermittent fasting” to refer to 5:2 fasting or ADF, and “time-restricted feeding” to refer to 16:8. Not every study defines these terms the same way.
I agree that “fasting” is kind of a trigger word for many people who aren’t informed about IF — people often jump to the conclusion that you’re starving yourself.