Explainer: What is Daesh and what's in a name?

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has decided to follow the lead of other Western leaders and rebrand the self-proclaimed Islamic State with an acronym they despise.

After talks with the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Mr Abbott started using the name Daesh, which is an acronym for the Arabic spelling of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant.

The Forum on Australia's Islamic Relations welcomes the Prime Minister's adoption of the acronym.

"There is a perception that Islam is a problem and I think that it's very important that we try and avoid associating Islam as a religion in general with these criminal acts or these terrorist acts," Kuranda Seyit, Director of the Forum said.

"It's really important that we do change the way we refer to these organisations because it will help in alleviating some of the strains that the Muslim community are going through at the moment."

Tony Abbott's decision to use the acronym comes a few months after the French Foreign Minister Lauren Fabius called on the media to use Daesh because he said the name Islamic State blurs the lines between Islam, Muslims and Islamists.

The United States government started using the term late last year.

The US Secretary of State John Kerry used the terminology at a summit in Brussels of the US-led coalition of nations fighting the Islamic State militants.

"We have made already significant progess in two and a half months but we also acknowledge there is a lot more work to be done. Daesh is still perpetrating terrible crimes," Kerry said at the time.

At a news conference at the Pentagon last month, Lieutenant General James Terry explained why he had started using Daesh.

"Daesh is a term that our partners in the Gulf use. It speaks to a name that's very close to ISIL in Arabic and it also speaks to another name that means 'to crush underneath your foot'," he said.

"It's a regional acronym for Daesh and I would just say that our partners, at least the ones that I work with, ask us to use that because they feel that if you use ISIL you legitimise a self-declared caliphate."

The Islamic State reportedly hates the use of the acronym, not least because of those negative connotations and has promised to remove the tongues of anyone who dares to speak it.