> are they just freeloading on the "pi" suffix to confuse people?

Yes, but that is normal I guess:

- https://banana-pi.org/

- http://www.orangepi.org/index.html

- https://radxa.com/products/rockpi

They are "freeloading" indeed but in this case it is a valuable indicator that it should be physically compatible with many add-ons/attachments that are compatible with the Raspberry Pi.