Why service provider method is called "provider", but not "provide"?

[Alex Orlov]

Hello all,
 
According to this tutorial  https://www.logicbig.com/tutorials/core-java-tutorial/modules/service-provider-method.html
we can declare in module-info provider class with "provider" method. For example,
 
 ......
public class TheServiceProvider {
   public static AService provider() {
       return new AServiceImpl();
   }
}
 
The only thing what I don’t understand is why this method is called "provider". The method doesn’t return
provider, method returns an instance of the service, so, as I understand, the method must be named
"provide". And, as I understand, provider is usually the class, that has "provide" method.
 
Of course that’s not very important, but it is JDK, so it was developed by very experienced java developer
who should know java naming convention and I want to understand why this did so. Could anyone explain?
 
 
--
Best regards, Alex Orlov