It wasn't exactly a deliberate choice. The number system we use was imported to Europe from Arabia. In Arabic, the number 1234 is written with the most signifi

It wasn't exactly a deliberate choice. The number system we use was imported to Europe from Arabia. In Arabic, the number 1234 is written with the most significant digit on the left -- but Arabic is written right-to-left, so it's actually little-endian. When they were introduced to Europe (with the help of Fibonacci), the convention of putting the most significant digit on the left was retained, but since European languages are written left-to-right the notation magically became big-endian. The fact that the Roman numeral system that it replaced was also big-endian was likely an influence.