Point is a hub, not a verb
The lat/lon endpoint started life as an internal grid table called geogrid. Five name candidates got floated for the public version, then one line ended the argument outright.
A database table doesn't need a name anyone remembers. A public endpoint does.
/point started as geogrid, a table built to hold nothing but raw elevation samples spaced across a grid. Before the lookup sitting on top of it ever got a public name, /geo, /location, /grid, /terrain, and /spatial all got floated as what to call it. Every one of them named the table. None of them named the job.
Then one line ended the argument: "Going to call it /point." No runoff, no ranking the five candidates against each other, the whole search just stopped. The job description showed up in the very next sentence: one lat/lon in, pull back whatever else exists at that coordinate.
The name outgrew the table it was named after
geogrid is still there. Elevation still comes from it. But /point was never really about that table, it was about the coordinate, which is why country, state, and district could get added to the same route later without anyone touching a URL. A name borrowed from geogrid could not have carried that without lying about what came back.
Try it
Call /point?lat=&lon= on any coordinate. The table it started on is not even the interesting part anymore.