In the early days of Internet, host naming was not yet standardized. The UK academic network used a least-to-most specific naming scheme (JANET NRS) (like, uk.

In the early days of Internet, host naming was not yet standardized. The UK academic network used a least-to-most specific naming scheme (JANET NRS) (like, uk.tld.institution.machine) whereas the US adopted the most-to-least ordering (eg. machine.department.organization.tld). As the DNS became the dominant name-to-IP mechanism, the JANET NRS faded away, and we're all now used to most-to-least specific host names. But hey, at least the most-specific bit isn't in the middle.