It's considered courteous to quote the names in the same order that they appear on the original paper.
------------
On a general note...
In the case of student papers, it is particularly important to respect the order. It's difficult for students to get published, so they sometimes ask a professor if he/she will "sponsor" the student to help get a paper published. Sometimes the student does 100% of the work and the professor's name is really only there to help the student get a foot in the door. So it takes a lot away from the student who did the research if people switch the order of the names around and give the major credit to the professor (who sometimes contributes nothing other than the name).
I noticed when the press reported on the research of Hauer and Kondrak, most of them switched the names around (probably because Kondrak was the older researcher), but it's considered impolite to do so. A lot of discussion goes on when deciding the order of names on research papers and it's best to respect that order. I don't know how much Kondrak contributed (maybe a little, maybe a lot), but I have seen situations where the professor had no involvement in the research, the work was entirely done by the student (usually a grad student).
------------
On a general note...
In the case of student papers, it is particularly important to respect the order. It's difficult for students to get published, so they sometimes ask a professor if he/she will "sponsor" the student to help get a paper published. Sometimes the student does 100% of the work and the professor's name is really only there to help the student get a foot in the door. So it takes a lot away from the student who did the research if people switch the order of the names around and give the major credit to the professor (who sometimes contributes nothing other than the name).
I noticed when the press reported on the research of Hauer and Kondrak, most of them switched the names around (probably because Kondrak was the older researcher), but it's considered impolite to do so. A lot of discussion goes on when deciding the order of names on research papers and it's best to respect that order. I don't know how much Kondrak contributed (maybe a little, maybe a lot), but I have seen situations where the professor had no involvement in the research, the work was entirely done by the student (usually a grad student).