There is planning to make Hibernate use column position internally. The problem ultimately is that this is not just an internal concern. It also leaks into Hibernate SPI (mostly in the Type/UserType contracts). So its not like this can just be easily swapped out.

And, whether you like it or not, JDBC allows accessing columns by name/alias. That is how Hibernate was designed to work from the onset.

Also, column aliases can in fact be unique. Hibernate generates them, so it ensures that they are unique.

No the problem ultimately is the lack of consistent support for this in JDBC drivers.