I would not know a name for this phenomenon, but it is a fundamental fact about actions of monogenous (i.e., generated by a single element) groups. A monogenous group is the set of integral powers $g^i$ of some element $g$, written $\def\g{\langle g \rangle}\g$; since in a group all elements must be invertible, there is no difficulty in defining $g^i$ for negative integral$~i$. Such a monogenous group is determined either by specifying an element $g$ of a (possibly much larger) group $G$, or directly by specifying an invertible operation (i.e., a bijection) $g$ on some set $X$. In the latter case, $\g$ comes with an action on $X$ (so $h\cdot x$ is a well defined element of $X$ for any $h\in\g$), while in the former case any action of $G$ restricts to an action of$~\g$.
The fundamental fact is that in this situation, and for any chosen $x\in{X}$, the orbit $\{\,h\cdot x\mid h\in\g\,\}$ is either infinite, in which case one has $g^i\cdot x\neq g^j\cdot x$ whenever $i\neq j$, or it has some finite positive number $n$ of elements, in which case $g^i\cdot x=g^j\cdot x$ if and only if $i\equiv{j}\pmod{n}$; in the latter case, the action of $g$ on the orbit of $x$ can be said to be purely periodic of period $n$.
The fact can be proved by studying the correspondence $i\mapsto g^i\cdot x$, which is an action of the (additive) group $\Bbb Z$, using the classification of the subgroups of $\Bbb Z$ (which are $\{0\}$ and the infinite subgroups $n\Bbb Z$ of all mulitples of $n$, for any integer $n\geq1$), by applying this classification to the stabiliser subgroup $\{\,i\in\Bbb Z\mid g^i\cdot x=x\,\}$ of$~x$.
This fact can be applied to $\g$ itself, which is equal to its orbit of the neutral element $g^0$ of the group; therefore either all powers of $g$ are distinct, or there is some positive integer$~k$, called the order of$~g$, such that $g^i=g^j$ if and only if $i\equiv{j}\pmod{k}$. In the latter case the powers of $g$ "cycle" around with period $k$, and the group $\g$ is called cyclic of order$~k$; in English parlance the term cyclic is also used in the former case (so cyclic is synonymous with monogenous, and the latter case needs "finite cyclic" to be singled out). An infinite monogenous group can have orbits of any finite size, as well as infinite orbits, but a cyclic group of order$~k$ can only have orbits of size dividing$~k$. If (as in your case) $X$ is a finite set, then any orbit by a monogenous group of course has to be finite, and is therefore periodic.