A top Pentagon general has informally rebranded the jihadists of Isis with the name “Daesh” after allies in the middle east asked he not use the group’s other monikers for fear they legitimize its ambitions of an Islamic state.

Lieutenant General James Terry almost exclusively used Daesh in reference to the militants at a press conference Thursday, although the Pentagon’s policy to primarily use “Isil” – an acronym for “the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” – has not changed.

Terry, who leads US operations against Isis in Iraq, said partners in the region had asked him not to use the terms Islamic State, Isil or Isis (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria). Secretary of state John Kerry has also shifted his language in recent weeks, using Daesh 16 times and Isil only twice during remarks to Nato counterparts in Belgium. Retired general John Allen, the US envoy to coordinate the coalition against Isis, also prefers Daesh. French president Francois Hollande has used Daesh interchangeably with the group’s other names.

Daesh is also an acronym for an Arabic variation of the group’s name: al-Dawla al-Islamyia fil Iraq wa’al Sham. Most of the middle east and many Muslims abroad use Daesh, saying that although the jihadists have declared the nebulous region they control a caliphate, they neither adhere to Islam nor control a real state. Islamic clerics in particular have taken issue with the terms that include “Islamic State”. A group of British imams has suggested to prime minister David Cameron that he call the group “the Un-Islamic State”.

Supporters of Isis dislike Daesh because it separates Islam from their mission, and also because the term has become a pejorative in Arabic. Describing the word’s history, the Guardian’s middle east editor Ian Black wrote in September that Daesh has taken on a meaning beyond the jihadists’ control: “in the plural form – ‘daw’aish’ – it means bigots who impose their views on others.”

Isis itself has gone through many iterations and held shifting titles. It began in 1999 as Jamaat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, became al-Qaida in Iraq and then the Islamic State in Iraq under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, adopted “al-Sham”, and finally set out to be simply “the Islamic State”.

When Isis attempted to rebrand itself “the Islamic State” in September, residents in the Iraqi city of Mosul told the Associated Press that the jihadists “threatened to cut the tongue of anyone who publicly used the acronym Daesh … saying it shows defiance and disrespect”.