Shooting Stars.... why this name?

They are falling though. Falling stars are meteors; meteors are lumps of ice and/or rock that hit our atmosphere, burn up and glow as they fall. Shooting stars; well, they are shooting through the atmosphere at great speeds.

I only know them as a shooting star, so i guess they get their name from the way the shoot across the sky? I think, but maybe there is another reason they are called that.

I agree with those who say it's because they appear to be shooting across the atmosphere. Most of the time they are hitting the Earth's atmosphere at an angle. I know the friction of the atmosphere causes them to heat up and glow, but I'll bet it also deflects the meteor a bit so that makes it shoot across the sky as it heads toward the ground.