Are distributed element filters really distributed?
In distributed element filters the circuit isn't put together of discrete capacitors nor inductors. The visible elements are pieces of transmission lines which are coupled together by joints and couplings where the wave jumps over a gap form one line to another.
They are said to be distributed because transmission lines (at least those which work carrying TEM waveform) can be seen as having capacitance, inductance and loss resistance uniformly distributed along the line.
You seemingly have an idea. &quot;It's not really distributed because it contains discrete parts, no matter those parts may be modeled with distributed quantities!&quot; The idea is valid, but it's not in accordance with our established conventions.
One way to design distributed element filters is to use Richard's Transformation. It's a math trick (see NOTE1) which helps to convert LC filters to transmission line circuit filters. LC ladder circuits will be transformed to transmission line ladders. Read this for a start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commensurate_line_circuit
But there are also other design methods which are based initially on wave carrying circuits, not on lumped element LC filters.
NOTE1: R's transformation belongs to frequency variable transformations. The idea is to change the frequency variable in the transfer function to get a filter which can be built from different kind of parts or to convert the transfer function to different filtering type; for ex. from lowpass to bandpass. The simplest widely used frequency variable transformation is to change f to 1/f. It changes a lowpass filter to a highpass filter. In a LC filter circuit that means changing inductors to capacitors and vice versa.