They are capacitors, so you weren't wrong to look for them that way. And some books even refer to them as "radio noise suppression capacitors" but because more and more automotive people over the years just identified them with "condensers" inside a distributor, where the electronic folks usually used the capacitor name, it pays to look for both in case the person loading the computer was an auto type, or an electric type.
I believe the original word was in fact condenser, or condensator (like the original word for aluminum was "alumium"), but with the demise of distributors many years ago now, I think capacitor is likely to take over and leave condensers to the air-conditioning folks.
Paul