If you had ancestors that were slaves in the 1800s and for that reason want to avoid any word that looks like "master", even if used in a different meaning, then by all means go ahead and change your git branch name, that's your business, as silly as it is. I only object if you want to project this absurdity on others, and make THEM change THEIR branch names.

I personally have much closer ancestors, that were tortured by the communists within living memory. What if I told you that for this reason the word "comrade" triggers me? Or in analogy with the github situation, if I asked people to stop wearing Che t-shirts? Would you say that was reasonable, or a sign of insanity?

As I said, "allow list" is more descriptive if you don't know the word whitelist in the sense that it's easier to guess its meaning the first time you see it. My point is that this is not generally considered important, just look at 100 random words, most of them would be hard to guess the exact meaning of, even if like me you studied classical languages.