I'd like to resolve this naming technicality by locating an official naming authority, if one exists.
As far as I can tell, "Pillars of Creation" was the name given to the photograph that Hubble took of NGC 6611 - M16 - The Eagle Nebula. And wasn't actually intending to give an official name to that particular star-forming/destroying part of the Eagle Nebula itself.
Wikipedia seems to capture the original use of the name well:
Pillars of Creation is a photograph taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of elephant trunks of interstellar gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula...
In calling the Hubble's spectacular new image of the Eagle Nebula the Pillars of Creation...
After earning huge cultural significance, that the name of the photograph seems to have become the ubiquitous name of that part of the nebula. e.g. nasa.gov:
the Pillars of Creation are a fascinating but relatively small feature of the entire Eagle Nebula...
Now, especially with JWST's new image of the feature, I'm starting to see more cases where "Pillars of Creation" is referring to the nebula, not the image of it, i.e. the subject of photograph, as opposed to the photograph itself.
There's no arguing that it's an overwhelmingly popular moniker for the astronomical object, but is this one of those "Frankenstein is the doctor, not the monster" kind of situations? Or is that part of the Eagle Nebula actually officially named as such somewhere?
I'm not sure where I would go to look for such an official name to resolve this issue - that's my real question.