My theory is that we're used to see symlinks as part of the "ls -l" output, which lists the link name first, and then the target. Later, we want to create symlinks as we're used to see them (linkname -> target).

The problem is that you're using the wrong definition of "link". I also say "link $foo to $bar", but that puts it in the right order:

I have a folder. I want to link that folder to some other name, over yonder. " ln -s foo bar". See?