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I was taught somewhere along the way that the term "Orient" for the East comes from the idea that maps were once oriented in that direction.

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Put it out of your mind. The term "Orient" comes from the fact that the sun rises in the East; the Latin word (oriens) literally means "rising".

This is also why the contrasting term is "Occident" (meaning "falling"), but that word is less well known today.

Wikipedia confirms your explanation and I have no reason to doubt it. Wyoming has the Occidental Hotel, which introduced me to the term, but I never made the connection that its a simple pair of Latin antonyms. I'll correct this in my mental list of "fun facts".

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