During my studies in mathematics a lot of people who are concerned about the communication of mathematics say that the term "imaginary numbers" is a misleading term. Maybe because these numbers are not any more "imagined" than other numbers. So then I thought about the other names we give to sets of numbers, like natural numbers, rational, real and irrational etc. Maybe natural numbers come to the fact that a naive view of the world, things can be described with discrete numbers. Rationals follow self-explanatory. With the reals, it gets a bit tricky because $\pi$ or $e$ aren't anything real.
But then there are physical constants that by the nature of SI units are found in reality. For example the speed of light is probably an irrational number. We would have been pretty lucky with our definitions of meters and seconds to get a fraction, so maybe that is a good reason they are called Real numbers.
Now what about complex numbers. Are there any physical constants that are complex?
Because if not, it would be a pretty fitting name that they are imaginary numbers. I understand the problem with the name for people who have to use complex numbers to accomplish something in the real world and have understanding/motivation issues. But compared to the field of rational polynomials, these complex numbers are clearly numbers but they can not be "found" in the real world. we just imagine them. So that would be a great name.