Phanes are abstractions of highly complex organic molecules introduced for simplification of the naming of these highly complex molecules.
Systematic nomenclature of organic chemistry consists of building a name for the structure of an organic compound by a collection of names of its composite parts but describing also its relative positions within the structure. Naming information is summarised by IUPAC:
Whilst the cyclophane name describes only a limited number of sub-structures of benzene rings interconnected by individual atoms or chains, phane is a class name which includes others, hence heterocyclic rings as well. Therefore, the various cyclophanes are perfectly good for the general class of phanes as well keeping in mind that the cyclic structures in phanes could have much greater diversity.