Danny Cohen introduced the terms big-endian and little-endian into computer science for data ordering in an Internet Experiment Note published in 1980.

The adjective endian has its origin in the writings of 18th century Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift. In the 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels, he portrays the conflict between sects of Lilliputians divided into those breaking the shell of a boiled egg from the big end or from the little end. Because the emperor's son had cut his finger while opening an egg from the big end, doing so was prohibited by an imperial edict; those who rebelled and did so were called "Big-Endians" (Swift did not use the term Little-Endians in the work). Cohen makes the connection to Gulliver's Travels explicit in the appendix to his 1980 note.
In computer science, where did the term big-endian originate?
Danny Cohen introduced the terms big-endian in an Internet Experiment Note published in 1980. In the appendix to the 1980 note he connected the idea to Gulliver's Travels.