Negatives and zero are meta meta, too. Show me negative apples. Show me zero apples.
I show you a box. Upon opening you observe three holes inside which are perfectly shaped to fit apples, and only apples. You observe that the holes are empty. Thus, -3 apples.
Next, I show you a box which is empty. It has zero of everything in it, including 0 apples.
Compared to j, negatives and zero are relatively easy to understand and conceptualize in the real world.
My contention is that calling it "imaginary" makes people resistant to learning it.
People are resistant to learning j because j is hard to learn, and is of much less practical daily use to the average person than 0, negatives, and positives.
The moniker "imaginary" was applied to this and other numbers to make them easier to understand and learn. It explicitly calls out the fact that it doesn't exist - it's imaginary, and only exists as a tool to help solve problems.
I don't doubt that there are a whole group of mathematicians that disagree with the terminology in current use - there are many, many differing opinions on how math should be taught. Keep in mind, however, that audience matters. I think it's ok to teach "imaginary numbers" to high school students, 95% of whom will never need to know or understand them again. The 5% that care will manage just fine, even with the ambiguous terminology.
Keep in mind that I'm not a proponent of any given approach, I just like playing the devil's advocate, so, you know, don't take me too seriously (honestly, this is halforums, if you take anything here too seriously then it's already too late for you to be saved).