Mhhh I see what you mean.
The gameobject name is the container of the data, and its data can't be converted to a string, differently from all other variable types

But on another point of view, if I have a variable named HIT OBJ and this variable contains gameobject BUILDING_01, I have 2 types of data identified by that object: the object data itself, which is complex, and its name.
So it wouldn't be so wrong to call it conversion as well, I think.
Like CONVERT GAMEOBJECT NAME TO STRING in example.