'Different words' are usually needed in order to avoid ambiguity, hence to achieve clear communication. The extreme of the alternative would be to call every electrical item just 'a component', and that would clearly be ridiculous.The synchronous vibrator was a separate item to the transformer, and we used a different name when combined we called it a rotary converter. Maybe we should just call them all thingamajigs and forget having all the different words.
All that matters to me is clear and unambiguous communication, and I don't care a jot about which words are used to achieve that. My 'problem' is that, as far as I am concerned, current usage of the word "transformer" is NOT at all unambiguous (unless qualified).
Kind Regards, John