For R at least some of it is due to R's flexibility x$name syntax stems from data frames being really lists in disguise x[["name"]] ditto, plus because it's us

For R at least some of it is due to R's flexibility x$name syntax stems from data frames being really lists in disguise x[["name"]] ditto, plus because it's useful to access by string (see reflection in other languages) x[,"name"] and x[,1] because we can also apply the matrix syntax to data frames