Why is the asterisk before the variable name, rather than after the type?

Question

Why do most C programmers name variables like this:

int *myVariable;

rather than like this:

int* myVariable;

Answer 1

Because the * in that line binds more closely to the variable than to the type:

int* varA, varB; // This is misleading

As @Lundin points out below, const adds even more subtleties to think about. You can entirely sidestep this by declaring one variable per line, which is never ambiguous:

int* varA;
int varB;

The balance between clear code and concise code is hard to strike — a dozen redundant lines of int a; isn't good either. Still, I default to one declaration per line and worry about combining code later.