Why is "skilled engineer" better than "architect"? They are all just names - and it seems that the main reason people avoid the word "architect" is just because it has been abused in the past (and for some companies, the present). Maybe that's valid, because using the term may inadvertently make someone think that you're bought into the "no coding, but telling other people how to code" mindset.

However, I don't think "architect" is a silly name on it's own - it's just another piece of vocabulary we use to describe a certain role. It's no different to me than "VP" or "Janitor" or "Test automation engineer".

What do you mean, a silly name? There are lots of different types of engineers, whose skills lie in different places. Some are great at debugging, some are great at algorithms, some are great at plugging together API's, some are great at program architecture.

Those last ones are just called architects, just like there are back-end and front-end and database engineers. What do you have against a name?

In my opinion, an skilled engineer is not necessarily an artist. A great architect is an artist. That why it does makes sense to do the differentiation. And each one will excel at different roles.

HR has taken to calling low-level programmers "engineers" for some silly reason which makes the term meaningless. "Software Architect" is the new term for what used to be called a "Software Engineer", the one person in charge of the design of the whole system. In ten years the ads will probably be calling for "Software Architects" with two years of experience, and we will need another new word to describe the job of the software engineer / architect / ???.

all levels of developer are "skilled engineers". The purpose of having names like junior, senior and so on is to hash into the job title some notion of their experience level.

This might be silly to you, but since you're a mathematician, I am rather surprised the reason for names is not obvious.