Besides: I've never heard of "bottom" or "top" of lists or even arrays. "Start" and "End" are much better description for chains w/o any vertical orientation.

It's not so uncommon when one is working with stacks: you push items onto the top of the stack, and pop them off the top again. Since this is where Perl's push and pop got their names from, the terminology is not malapropos, even if it is perhaps uncommon for general arrays and lists.