Ongoing debates on the importance of creating a more inclusive and democratic food governance context have widely emphasised the potential of “food policy councils” as multi-actor alliances that cut across science, policy and society. Building on empirical insights about the variety of initiatives and arrangements designed to include all residents in the governance of food systems, in this paper we use the expression “food policy networks” (FPNs) and focus on their names to explore the linguistic and symbolic dimensions through which different organisations present and legitimate themselves.