I guess there's always been an need to know *which* river you were talking about, so they can't all have the same name. With rivers I wonder, was there a point at which the same river had different names along its length, or have they always had one name? I would guess that it's the latter, because even back in prehistory there was a lot of traveling around, and rivers are a good way to travel.

I absolutely love looking at place names on the map as we're driving around. It's one of the things you sadly lose with satnav. On the other hand, these days you can look up the place names as you're driving.

Hah! I just looked up the other Leeds, in Kent, and supposedly that has a completely different derivation, from Old English.