this type of method is usually called `awaitTermination`. The reason is that termination could happen due to an exception or an explicit "stop". Here are some examples:

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/concurrent/ExecutorService.html#awaitTermination(long, java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit)

http://doc.akka.io/api/akka/2.0/akka/actor/ActorSystem.html