Dunno how this is supposed to be worded, but it's because the "pointerhood" is tied to the variable being declared, not the type itself. This becomes obvious when you declare multiple variables at once.

  char* cat, dog;  /* one char pointer, one char */
  char *cat, *dog; /* two char pointers */

It's purely cultural. "char* foo" or "char * foo" does make more sense than "char *foo". But culture is a very strong and useful thing; if it "looks weird", that will create issues in people's brain when thinking about the code.

Also, case in point: how do you format "char * const foo"?