Afon is the Welsh for river, so River Avon effectively means "River River". But what about Calder, Dee, Derwent, Don, Esk, Ouse, Rother, Stour, Tame/Thame/Thames, Teme/Team, Tyne and Yeo? There are two or more rivers with these names and probably others.
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Why do the names of British rivers occur more than once around the country?
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birchesgreen
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Names have local origins, sometimes as far back as the Iron Age. Obviously back then if some ancient Briton wanted to name something he couldn't easily look up to see if the name was already used elsewhere!
Yes, river names go back a long way. We also say River Thames, River Severn etc. whereas the North Americans say Hudson River and St. Lawrence River, the other way round. But there are exceptions, e.g. Helford River in Cornwall, also the Huntspill River in Somerset which isn't even a river as it was built in 1940!
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WelshBluebird
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The same reason why we have some different towns / villages that have the same name too (e.g. Newport in South East Wales, Newport in Pembrokeshire, Newport in Shropshire, Newport on the Isle Of Wight etc etc).
tomwills98
Member
So which was the newest Newport, or Newtown
I grew up with the River Wandle at the end of the garden. Neither adults not kids in the area ever referred to it as the "The River Wandle", we just called it "The River". Not sure I was even aware it was called the Wandle until I was about 8.
So which was the newest Newport, or Newtown
Corny old humour proving irresistible here: the hoary thing about the Seven Wonders of the Isle of Wight -- two of which being "Newtown, which is very old"; and "Newport [new port], which you cannot bottle".
Like Pendle Hill incorporates three languages resulting in it meaning “hill hill hill”.
I believe Tame/Thame/Thames comes from an early British language (not sure which one) meaning “dark water”. A quick web search will probably give you your answer but no doubt there are loads of place name books out there too…
edwin_m
Veteran Member
I guess if a new town appears, it has to be called something, and is likely to be known as Newtown (or Newport, if a port, or Newcastle, if a castle) by default unless another name emerges. A place called Oldtown was probably so named retrospectively to distinguish from a nearby Newtown. I believe the name Oldham is thought to be something to do with owls.
Esk, Usk, Ouse etc are all variations on the Brythonic word for water
Derwen(t) similarly was the word for oak.
Rivers form natural boundaries between tribal areas. When the Saxons were moving in their expansion would have taken place in fits and starts over a period of decades, it wasn't always continual warfare. So there would have been periods when a Saxon and Celtic tribe shared a boundary, and there would have been (for a while at least) a shared understanding of where that boundary lay, and also what to call it (e.g. to sort out disputes over strayed livestock etc.).
Later, when the Saxons expanded further, the name they had learned for the previously shared river boundary would in some cases have been kept in use, long after the original British speakers had been driven away.
According to Wikipedia: Oldham's name is considered to be derived from the archaic Aldehulme -- for which various "parentages" are suggested. The "hulme" part is reckoned to come, for sure, from the Old Norse holmi / holmr = promontory or outcrop. "Alde" maybe from Old English ald = old; or maybe the name of one Alda, who might have farmed there. Or possibly from alt meaning "steep height, cliff" in the ancient Cumbric tongue -- thus a rather repetitive "steep height promontory". It would seem per Wiki: regrettably, no owls involved !
61653 HTAFC
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"Cowes you can't milk, Needles you can't thread... etc. etc."
What's brown, steaming and comes out of Cow(e)s? The Isle of Wight Ferry.
To bring this back on topic, the IOW has two rivers called the Yar. They are known locally, but not officially as the Western Yar and Eastern Yar.
Bevan Price
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Calder = Rapid Stream (Old Celtic)
Dee = The Goddess (Old Celtic)
Derwent = River where oak trees grow abundantly (Old Celtic)
Don = Water
Rother = Chief River (Celtic)
Stour = Possibly means "The Strong One" (Celtic)
Thames, Tame, Tamar, etc = Dark, or Flow Turbidly (Old Celtic)
Trent - Possibly "River Liable To Floods" (Celtic)
Tyne = Flowing One, river (Celtic)
Wear = Possibly Water, or The Bending One (Celtic)
Yeo = Possibly "Yew Stream" (Old English)
(From Oxford Dictionary of British Place Names by A.D. Mills)
DerekC
Established Member
I can't help mentioning the New River, which is of course not very new (1680 or so) and definitely not a river!
I asked my father once why so many rivers were called Avon. He told me it went back to the Romans - when they pointed at the local river and asked a local in Latin what the name of the river they had reached was, the local said "Afon ydyw, chi Rhufeinig dwl"*
* - "it's a river, you stupid Roman".
I asked my father once why so many rivers were called Avon. He told me it went back to the Romans - when they pointed at the local river and asked a local in Latin what the name of the river they had reached was, the local said "Afon ydyw, chi Rhufeinig dwl"*
* - "it's a river, you stupid Roman".
Gloster
Established Member
Sadly, a long-standing urban, or outback, myth. Ganguru is the name of the Eastern Grey in one of the local dialects
If you are referring to the New River which still supplies water to London from Hertfordshire, 1613 is a commonly quoted date. As far as I am aware, it is the only aqueduct over the M25.
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D6130
Established Member
The name 'Avon' for a river is also very common in Scotland, coming partly from the Gaelic name for a river, which is abhainn and partly - especially in the lowlands and Southern Uplands - from the Brythonic name mentioned upthread. Likewise Ouse, Esk and Uisk are derived from the Gaelic uisge - meaning 'water'.
One river name not mentioned is 'Colne', thought to have pre-Celtic connections and meaning 'Stream' or 'water'. There are Colnes in Lancashire, Hertfordshire and Essex and the Coln, a tributary of the Thames, starting near Cheltenham. The Lancashire one gives its name to the town of Colne; the Herts river indirectly to Colney Heath, London Colney and Colney Street; the Essex river was linked by the Saxons to Colchester, although that is originally a Celtic name. Similarly related river names are 'Calne' and 'Clun'.
D6130
Established Member
There's another one in West Yorkshire, rising on the moors above Marsden and flowing down through that village and on through Slaithwaite, and Huddersfield before joining the Yorkshire Calder at Cooper Bridge, between Brighouse and Mirfield.
GusB
Established Member
The River Avon that's not too far away from me is pronounced without the "v" - "ahn", basically. Rather like the place on the Black Isle that's pronounced "Och", despite being spelled "Avoch".
And Ben Avon in the Cairngorms is pronounced Ben A’an.
Nearly all the Welsh place names for settlements were replaced by the invaders but they did not replace the names for many rivers so Severn, Dee, Derwent, Don, Esk, Ouse, Torne, Went and many, many more have Welsh origins. Welsh place names are traditionally more descriptive and hence repetitive.
Lloyds siding
Member
I'll add Aln(e), Douglas and Mersey. Whist there is only one River Mersey, the name crops up round Britain as Mersea island and also 'The Merse' in Scotland. The name seems to mean either 'boundary' or boundary river, or 'pool' or 'marsh'. There's also the River Merse in Italy and the River Meuse in France/Belgium/Netherlands.
biko
Member
It happens everywhere around the world, but I also was confused at first with the different rivers with the same name in the UK. I couldn't understand how the same small river would flow through Bath, Stratford-upon-Avon and Dorset. It turned out I encountered 3 rivers of the same name in one visit to the UK...
bradleyd
Member
Does Witham, as in linconshires river Witham appear anywhere else but in the town in Essex which is pronounced completely differently?
Gloster
Established Member
There is a village in Somerset which is pronounced differently to the place in Essex. The Somerset one also had a station once.
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