Like my mom calling every video game "Nintendo" or every Pokemon "Pikachu"

It does feel like the "Kleenex" or "Velcro" of the TTRPG world, but it is shorter and easier to explain to people not in the hobby. If I say to my relatives that I "play D&D", they at least have an idea of what I'm talking about. If I say I play Pathfinder, they will ask, "What's that?", to which I respond, "like D&D". Trust me, they don't give a shit about the differences. They just think it's weird for a grown man to prefer make pretend to sports.

Before you can make such a consideration you should remove the copyright on the term "D&D" from Hasbro, otherwise your goal is clearly to stifle any TTRPG at birth, as every author would instantly get a lawsuit every time they have to submit their game.

It's no different than hoover/vacuum cleaner.

I grew up in the south where all soda is Coke so this all checks out to me

You have a lot of people in your comments who don't know what "genericization" is. Honestly, every time I've posted this take, it's had the same response. But, I do think it's the right way to go and we don't even have to expose ourselves to trademark infringement if we call games "[D-word that is not dungeons] & [D-word that is not dragons]" and *other* people shorthand it to D&D. And "5E"? The only active trademark for that is for a home goods store — totally not relevant to ttrpgs.