Well, to reference Julia Evans another time:

head and HEAD are specifically the third meaning of 'branch', i.e. the newest commit on a branch, but can also refer to a commit not on a branch, when in that detached head state.

And while I'm not enamored with these names either, I can't think of a word that I like better for this meaning.

Julia Evans has an abundance of helpful info guides like this

I was expecting some sort of joke. Sneaky..