I agree that the verb gathering is misleading. It makes the requirements sound obvious and salient, like you're picking up fallen apples under a tree.
To me requirements aren't gathered, they are 'elicited'.
To me requirements aren't gathered, they are 'elicited'.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requirements_elicitation
"The term elicitation is used in books and research to raise the fact that good requirements cannot just be collected from the customer, as would be indicated by the name requirements gathering. Requirements elicitation is non-trivial because you can never be sure you get all requirements from the user and customer by just asking them what the system should do or not do."