I’ve always been interested in the origins of landscape words … Rithe, Bourne, etc. In Britain, there are a fair number of rivers called the “Avon” and I used to idly spend some time wondering where that name came from. The origins are quite amusing for someone like me.
It so happens that the Welsh word for river is “Afon” and I used to wonder if the similarity to “Avon” was due to some sort of miscommunication between the native Brythonic population and incoming Saxons. It turns out that I was not the only one to think so.
So all the rivers called Avon are really named “River River”. One can imaging how this might occur :-
Saxon: “So, native what is this river called ?” (in Old English)
Native: “It’s a river you dumb Saxon ox” (in proto-Welsh)
Saxon: “Avon? That’s a funny name, but I guess I can remember it” (OE)
Native: “Yes, a river with water in it”
Of course the real reason may have been that the Brythonic population didn’t want to give too much information away that would help the Saxons militarily. And of course the misunderstanding (or misleading answers) means we have lost the original names for the rivers in question.