Evocative comes from the Latin word evocare, which means to "call out" or "summon" to evocativus.  Think of a batch of cookies summoning a memory from your childhood. To summon something you need a voice, and indeed, the Latin word for voice is vocare. Other related words include the noun vocation, which means "a calling."  Entered English is mid 17th century as evoke and evocative.  

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known use of "evocative" in English was around the mid-17th century, with the earliest recorded instance appearing in 1657, in a translation by Richard Tomlinson. evocative is a borrowing from Latin. 

Examples of evocative: 

• that smell is evocative of my childhood"
• "his words were highly evocative"
• "the building's cramped interiors are highly evocative of past centuries"