Hi Tim, the MoI views follow the standard view names used for engineering drawings for the past hundred years or so.

The names come from the viewer's location. Imagine that you are sitting at a square table with an object on it. If you move your chair to the next side of the table towards your right hand direction that will be the view from the right. If you move your chair towards your left to the next table side then what you see will be the view from the left.

This is used in a generic way for all objects, it's not something that makes sense to change just because the object happens to be a car or a boat.

Here's an illustration from "Essentials of Drafting", Carl Lars Svensen, first published1918, third edition 1945, page 73:



- Michael