The USB people decided to have new sub versions replace the older standard rather than extend it. USB 3.0 was replaced by USB 3.1, and then again replaced by USB 3.2. If you think of it in a bureaucratic sense, it starts to make sense (something receiving classification A under the Widget Law of 2012, classification B under the Widgets Etc. Law of 2014, and classification Å under the Widgets Standardisation Law of 2018). The problem is that they forgot to inform the general public how their versions work, and the general public also doesn't (and shouldn't need to) care about their weird versioning system.

As an end user, you shouldn't need to care about the generation and amount of lanes that USB provides. There's a logo on the box that has the USB shape, SS, and the speed. For textual representations, there's "SuperSpeed x gbps". If you see SS5 and your computer also had a sticker that says SS5 or SS10 or even SS20, you're good. That's how the USB guys foresaw the whole process going. Obscure use cases that may technically happen (like two gen 1 streams rather than a single gen 2 stream, aka USB 3.2 gen 1x2 rather than USB 3.2 gen 2x1) don't get a logo or a fancy name and you'll probably run into compatibility challenges for such a setup.

USB X.Y gen ZxQ isn't meant for the general public, it's a technical specification. x specifies the generation of the version y specifies which specification, z specifies the type of connection (given X.Y = 3.2 and above) with q specifying the amount of USB lanes available.

Like PCIe 4.0 1x16 vs 2x8, it's all designed as designations for domain experts. Use the SuperSpeed naming system like the USB people want you to and you'll probably be a lot less confused. They tried to simplify things (again) by dropping the SuperSpeed in USB 4, calling it simply USB 4 xx Gbps, which is probably for the best.