Git has weird terminology. Though a lot of commercial SCMs are also a bit strange. Example: Perforce which has depots and shelves. At least with git, I can create a branch without waiting 2 weeks for the IT department.
It “sort of” makes sense. When a company shelves a movie, they’re probably never finishing it. When I shelve my code, I’m probably coming back to it at some point soon. For example, I worked at a place that would have everyone “shelve” all their code before code review. In that context it didn’t make sense to me.