A fairly recent example, "salty". It's short, and kinda feels like it describes what it means (salty -> tears -> upset).
It sounds like "call" is similar. It's short, so easy to say for an often used technical term, and there are a couple of ways it can "feel right": calling up, calling in, summoning, invoking (as a magic spell). People hear it, it fits, and the term spreads. I doubt there were be many competing terms, because terms like "jump" would have been in use to refer to existing concepts. Also keep in mind that telephones were hot, magical technology that would have become widespread around this same time period. The idea of being able to call up someone would be at the forefront of people's brains, so contemporary programmers would likely have easily formed a mental connection/analogy between calling people and calling subroutines.