Where did the name of "Easter" come from?

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• No such goddess ever existed. The only reference to her comes from Bede, and even he admits he's guessing as to why the Anglo-Saxons called their month of April "Oester-monath" - which just means "month of opening/budding/beginning".

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  by Stormarm on April 9th, 2009

• Actually such a Goddess still exists. Ostara is the more popularized version now, but Eostre is what the ancient Celts called her.

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  by hedge-rider on April 10th, 2009

• Ostara is Old High German and was only the putative name of an hypothesized ancient continental Germanic goddess for which no actual evidence exists, but was only a speculative reconstruction by Jacob Grimm (writing in 1882), and his only source was Bede.

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  by Stormarm on April 10th, 2009

• Was again, verb tense.

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  by hedge-rider on April 10th, 2009

• Also, my sources are a little more spread (at least for the ability of claiming "ancient Celts") due to my direct ancestors and the ample supply of oral history that is still passed down from generation to generation.

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  by hedge-rider on April 10th, 2009

• I have to agree with Storemarm - so far as I can find out, nothing predates Bede and the Ostara is of very dubious provenance. Well, every day I learn.

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  by Im Alec has abandoned this account on April 10th, 2009