When bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-inter‐
active shell with the --login option, it first reads and executes com‐
mands from the file /etc/profile, if that file exists. After reading
that file, it looks for ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile,
in that order, and reads and executes commands from the first one that
exists and is readable. The --noprofile option may be used when the
shell is started to inhibit this behavior.
Isso foi tirado textualmente de man bash
. O homem é seu amigo:)