Most scholars take the view of "the Venerable Bede" who in 8th Century England speculated that the name Easter may have come from the name for the Anglo-Saxon Pagan goddess Eastre or Ostara, known in the Middle East as Astarte, and legend says that to delight children Ostara turned her pet bird into a rabbit which began to lay brightly colored eggs, which she gave to children. But there are other possibilities. For one, the name may simply come from Anglo-Saxon "eastre" from which come east, easterly or eastern, which would be logical because Christianity entered from the Orient or east of Europe. It may also derive from the Bible's speaking of Christ as someday returning to resurrect people from out of the east (Mt 24:27), from Revelation 2:28 saying "I will also give him the morning star" or Revelation 22:16 saying "I, Jesus, ... am the Root and the offspring of David, and bright Morning Star."
Some modern persons including those misled by the Watchtower Society over Jehovah's Witnesses have attacked the celebration of Easter by calling today's usage of Easter rabbits and eggs a deplorable vestige of ancient fertility or sex rituals that pre-dated Christianity.
They contend that Easter, which is so highly esteemed by most Christians is tarred with an immorality that God could not possibly find acceptable. In fact some ancient cultures indeed have used colored eggs to symbolize different ideas or as part of worship as when, for example, the Chinese, have used eggs dyed red to symbolize good luck, and in Europe pagans did also used egg in religion.
But even if the day's name in English, the usage of rabbits and eggs might all have started from Pagans, regardless many wedding customs, names of days and months, designs on money, and even names of Christians in the Bible (Apollo, Jason, etc) etc are also of non--Christian, Pagan origin. Yet those have always been perfectly acceptable for Christians, even those who speak against Easter. A fruitage of God's spirit is joy (Ga 5:22), and whether some aspects of Easter may or may not have come from previous Pagan celebrations of spring time, or Judaism, the fact is that Christianity, which much uses Easter or the day of the Last Supper memorial, defeated Paganism and also outgrew Judaism.
In fact Paul counsels at Colossians
and Romans 14:1-5 that Christians have freedom to observe or not observe days and to hold different views.
