Wireless network interfaces' names: eth1 vs. wlan0

I noticed my laptop's wireless interface is named eth1, whereas the wireless on a netbook is named wlan0 (both have a wired eth0 in addition to wireless).

I suppose both are set by /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules:

# PCI device 0x8086:0x1043 (ipw2100)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}==" (the MAC address) ", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth1"

vs.

# PCI device 0x168c:0x001c (ath5k)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}==" (the MAC address) ", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="wlan*", NAME="wlan0"

Is there a reasoning behind calling ipw2100's interface eth1 and not wlan0? Is there any reason I shouldn't change the name (by editing 70-persistent-net.rules to name the ipw2100 interface "wlan0", to make the two systems more alike)? I'm not sure I'll actually do that, but was interested in what the difference means from both theoretical and practical points of view.