Question

The shortcut that appear on the desktop are called

Answer 1

In the Mac, a pointer shortcut is called an "alias," and a shortcut is a keyboard command (see below). In both Windows and Mac, right clicking and selecting Create Shortcut or Make Alias accomplishes the same thing. See Win Shortcuts. Shortcut icons have a northeast-pointing arrow at their bottom left side.

Answer 2

The modern computer operating systems mainly work with the graphics based user interface.

This graphics based user interface often includes different shortcut icons for different programs or database.

In the windows operating system,these shortcuts are simply just known as "Shortcuts".

But in the Mac os ,these shortcuts are known as the "Alias" which are mainly non-graphical , keyboard based shortcuts.