The person that concocted the term "associative array" should be ... excommunicated.

The term 'associative array' way pre-dates the overloading of the term 'hash' as a name for 'content addressable storage'.

• SNOBOL: circa 1962 had associative arrays implemented using a form of hashing and called them 'tables'.
• MUMPS: circa 1966 had associative arrays implemented using sparse B-trees and just called them 'arrays'.
• REXX: circa 1979 had associative arrays implemented using binary trees and called them 'stems'.

The term is a description of the abstract mechanism of addressing data by what it contains (the value is associated with its key); rather than by where it is (a standard C-type array); or how that abstraction is implemented (Perl's hashes).

Silly to condemn a term (or its unknown coiner).