I have found that the word budget can make people feel like they are on a money diet. If you restrict spending too much there can be a tendency to rebel and have a blow out!
Spending plan is friendlier and seems less restrictive 
Canāt say that I agree with this and personally I donāt think it works either.
EG:
Your grocery spending plan is Ā£10 over this month
Your grocery budget is Ā£10 over this month
Not saying itās a bad idea, but letās see what others think 
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I think rather than change the word budget - more needs to be done in explaining what a budget can be. Yes a budget can be used to ātrim the fatā so to speak to you can reduce the amount of money you spend.
At the same time a budget can also be used to simply record all your income and outgoings so you have a record of it without ālimitingā your usage.
Weāve seen in this forum the very many different ways budgets are used to their preferences, whether that be envelope, dump and forget, or meticulous category specific (to the penny) spreadsheets - so showing how a budget can be used is IMO better than changing the word.
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I see what you are saying and obviously we all see things slightly differently.
I donāt agree with the two statements you made though as a budget canāt be over itās a budget so the statements would be
Your spending on groceries is Ā£10 over budget; or
Your spending on groceries is Ā£10 over your spending plan
Of course you can go over budget, I donāt understand?
Now the double āspendingā in that sentence irks me 
I donāt think I can be convinced but appreciate you trying 
No worries we wonāt all agree on everything. Just with the work I do some people find the word budget a bit like a money diet 
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If this is just about changing the name of something then its really just down to personal opinion. Some people might prefer to call it a budget because they use it as a budget and its going to get confusing to have different names for the same thing, that is unless the behavior between a budget and a spending plan is different
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It used to be called Targets but was charged as it seemed the goal is to aim to spend all of it. I think the same would apply for spending plan, whereas budget implies more the maximum Iām allowed to spend
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Butā¦ It IS a budget.
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And yet itās also a spending plan 
Not really, spending plan suggests thatās how much youāre going to spend, which it isnāt, otherwise target would have been a suitable name. A budget is an amount of money allowed for that purpose
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I think works better for some people to have a plan but agree not everyone will be the same. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions too
Spending Plan does sound how much youāre planning to spend a bit like how it was previously Target like you were failing if it wasnāt all gone.
Spending plan shows I plan to spend Ā£1000, spent Ā£900 so I have Ā£100 left to spend.
Rather than Iāve budgeted Ā£1000 and spent Ā£900, and have Ā£100 left in the budget that could be spent or saved.
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I have a āspending planā in a year long spreadsheet, but this includes my average income, committed spending and then highlights a monthly budget I can afford as well as how much I will move to each pot. For me personally, it works really well and Iāve saved more than I ever have done before. Iāve tweaked the one pictured below to give a very rough guide to what itās like. My main one is on my laptop which isnāt near me at the moment. My main one also shows me all of my loans and the percentage of them I have paid off. This is my view on a āspending planā as apposed to a budget.
I put in the below image āremaining monthly allowanceā as apposed to ābudgetā as the budget is the last thing I arrange. Paying my bills, loans and paying into my pots is my main priority.
I donāt know about avoiding the word budget from an emotional point of view. But I agree with something along the lines of what the OP suggested in that I would expect a budget to include fixed costs and variable costs. Budget from a finance point of view should encompass more than the colloquial āthings we need to budget forā, which seems to be too close to the way the functionality seems to work in Monzo. At least thatās IMO!