The term "vector" represents an ordered collection of elements(ex 3-dim vector is [x,y,z]). A list is flat out incorrect because it is used to refer to linked list(std::list), and a collection means a group of objects and that can be anything like a map, set, etc so it's too generic.

Before C++ popularized the term, other programming languages and libraries had already used "vector" to describe similar data structures. For example, Common Lisp has a vector type that represents a one-dimensional array.