They aren’t related to the Shadow AKA the Void. Instead, they are related to Death.
In fact, for a place called “Shadowlands” there’s a whole lot of bright lights in Bastion.
(Incidentally, they should have added an NPC called Sebastion in Bastion.)
Why not Deathlands instead? 
2020 thinks this was a provocative topic for a thread.
I spend most of my time in the Shadowlands 
FINAL FANTASY XIV: Shadowbringers That’s why.
I just find it funny how everything in the land of ther dead seems pretty lively. They themselves can even die.
Half of the beings in Ardenwesld are living beings. All the goat people and the moth people are living beings. They’re not created by dead souls like the animals that look like soul shapes.
We even see proper animals.
The land of the dead is full of living beings.
And you’re right, it’s not tied to the void, but I think the Shadowlands was named long before they came out with the cosmology chart.
Rule of cool.
Shadowlands sounds better than Deathlands.
No, I don’t think so. That gray wispy version of the world you enter when you die in game has been called the Shadowlands long before Shadowbringers was ever in development. Longer than 14 has been in existence for that matter.
Names of places are often not descriptive of the way things are today. I don’t believe I heard or saw anyone in Shadowlands using that name. Could have been something that made sense to the “First ones” when they were creating the “Eternal ones” (i.e. the bots).
I can think of examples of places in our world whose names don’t match conditions today but it could lead to endless controversy just bringing it up.
Because Shadowlands sounds better in marketing.
That sounds like a death/heavy metal band name.
And then drop gold other loot that you can carry around when you rekill(?) them. For spirits they had pretty solid bodies.
Because it was called the shadowlands before the square peg that is the cosmology chart was ever inflicted on the round hole of the lore.
Then you go to the Shadowshadowlands, and that’s the setting of a future expansion.
It was called Shadowlands to fool Spriests into thinking that they will be a relevant spec throughout that expansion =(
Shadow isn’t Void.
Bastion was not a place of shadows… so bright it was washed out. Hurt my eyes to go there.
I seem to recall, back when SL was described as an expansion, they mentioned spirit healers.
The grey spooky place where our ghosts appear when we need to run back to our bodies.
I thought that was going to be the Shadowlands. A grey mirror world of our own. I was much disappointed.
Shadowlands made a major appearance in WoD Shadowmoon Valley. During the Ner’zhul fight he states that his boss arena is “the realm of the Shadow Lands” and “the realm of death itself” and he is obviously quite undead themed.
Okay you got me.
‘The Shadowlands was originally portrayed as the Shadow Plane, i.e. it was a parallel, overlapping ethereal world stacked on top of the Material Plane. Just like the Emerald Dream is the Faerie Plane in D&D. This is reflected in the Chronicles map, which puts the Shadowlands as an equivalent plane to the Emerald Dream. It also clearly mirrors its D&D inspirations, with its Inner elemental planes and Outer astral planes.’
The Shadowfell , also known as the Plane of Shadow , was one of the planes of existence in various cosmological models. Its purpose and characteristics evolved as new cosmologies were formulated. Other names for this plane included Shadowland the Demiplane of Shadow , the Shadow Deep , and simply Shadow
So, it actually just a reference to the D&D version.
Despite the decay, slime monsters, plethora of abominations, Maldraxxus was my favorite zone because it didn’t cause my eyes to bleed.
They’re called the Shadowlands because they are mere shadows of the one true realm of Amber Azeroth.
Everything is.
The whole game is inspired by D&D.