Tension is used in English to mean voltage sometimes too!

The most common place I can think of is in the HT (High Tension) leads leading to a car's spark plugs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_tension_leads

THAT is what high tension wires are?! I've always seen it in the context of the massive transmission lines, so I thought it meant that the wires themselves were under high tension from their weight.

I was today years old when I learned...

Similarly, I thought it meant because they were stretched to high tension to avoid sagging as much.

Also "high tension power lines," which being heavy catenaries presumably are in high mechanical tension, but must surely have gotten that name from the voltage = tension thing.

German has this too: voltage = Spannung = tension.

This must go right back to the earliest writings on voltage as a concept.

French also has "tension" in this very sense.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tension_%C3%A9lectrique

In spanish "Voltage" (i.e. voltaje) is "tensión" (tension) or "diferencia de potencial" (potential difference). A problem here is that "tension" communicates a concept, but "voltage" communicates nothing, it's only a derivation of the unit used, or perhaps something to do with Alessandro Volta, a gentleman most students these days hadn't the pleasure to meet.

A simmilar problem in spanish was "amperaje" (amperage) which is not much heard any more except very colloquially among electricians; the standard term is "corriente" (current).

However, the units and letters are somewhat confusing for the students:

V(oltage) = E(lectric field?), unit is Volt, is refered as tension of potential differece. A(mp) = I(ntensity), unit is Ampere, is refered as corriente. P(ower), unit Watt, is consistent, as is refered as potencia (power).

In Russian it is напряжение. Which can be loosely translated as tension, but more in the sense of a feeling than of a characteristic of a rope or a spring (that's натяжение).

In some languages voltage is called "pressure". I think this is also a good analogy because just like how you get energy from a pneumatic system by exploiting a pressure difference, you get energy from an electrical system by exploiting a potential difference

That analogy would work. In that case voltage (volts) would be the tension on a rubber band, current (amps) would be the width of the rubber band, ad Power (watts) would be the product of tension times the diameter (or mass).