I finally came across an explanation for why the KanColle girls names are often written right to left on so many things. Apparently it's because of the fact that Japanese text was traditionally written in columns that proceeded from right to left. Thus, when writing in a narrow horizontal space with room for only one character per column (such as a life preserver — and there's the KanColle connection), it was only natural to proceed from right to left since that was the normal direction for reading.