I had two Pintos and never had one burst into flame. Of course, I never had a drunk run into the back of one of them at 70 MPH while I was stopped by the side of the road either.
You and I think alike! I had the same term come to mind. But that term is associated with old guys like me, and I don't know LMan that well. But any way, I like well thought out debate.
Perhaps you might prefer "rock shield"? I worked on a car once that apparently a rock had bounced up into the car and wedged itself in between the spindle and rotor at the caliper bracket. By the time the fairly dense driver decided something nasty was going on up there the rotor had darn near been cut in half. The further he went, the deeper the rock wedged. Must have been granite or something, it was certainly a tough rock. My experience with repairing just this one car was enough to convince me the brake "dust shields" were a pretty good idea.
Many other parts on cars are often called dust shields though they could be more specifically named. I personally discovered the point of the "dust shield" on automatic transmission bellhousings. Without one, I caught a piece of large gravel which made some very entertaining (and scary) noises bouncing around inside the bellhousing and off the converter. Happily my rock wasn't granite and didn't actually do any real damage. I wasted no time finding and installing the proper "dust shield" though.
According to my factory parts guide, they are refered to as "shield, splash" which makes sense to me. Most are 22 gauge steel or lighter, and will crumple pretty easy from a decent sized rock. Many high performance cars, such as the 1LE Camaros, did not come with them from the factory. We wouldn't mind offering them, but press dies to make the stiffening ribs are pretty spendy.