[thatcks]

In many cases, the IP is the thing that comes first and foremost. You'll put it in DNS, you'll bind services to it (often because that's what the DNS is pointing to) or use it for outgoing traffic, and so on. Any interface name for it is simply an implementation detail, and you can live without it and even simplify your life if you don't have to come up with and keep track of those names.

(This is especially the case if you may at some point shift an IP alias between systems in order to move traffic from one to the other.)