I don't have seismic experience outside of school, but renaming things to avoid code restrictions seems irresponsible at best. Code restrictions are there for a reason, particularly in seismic areas. The code provides definitions for its terms also, so just renaming it at best makes it seem like you're hiding something. A rose is a rose afterall.
Maybe there's some provision that states if you do some ultra Mojo analysis you can do what you want.
I think ACI 352 covers beam-column joints.