"Easter" became the English term for the Christian Passover (Pascha) through a combination of Germanic cultural influence and early English bible translations.

While most languages derive their word for Easter from the Hebrew Pesach (e.g., Pques, Pasqua), English adopted a pre-existing 7th-century Saxon term (Eostre) that marked the spring season.

Key Reasons for the Shift:

Cultural Fusion: Early Christians in England merged the celebration of Jesus' resurrection with the spring festival honoring the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre (or Ostara)."

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Hating history is SO... Republican!

"Cultural Fusion"... also the name of the wine in Britannia that year.

Also taken by very early progressive Brit rock band.

"A holiday named for the goddess is part of the neopagan Wiccan Wheel of the Year (Ostara, 21 March).[40]

In some forms of modern Germanic paganism, 'ostre (or Ostara) is venerated. Regarding this veneration, Carole M. Cusack comments that, among adherents, 'ostre is "associated with the coming of spring and the dawn, and her festival is celebrated at the spring equinox.

Because she brings renewal, rebirth from the death of winter, some Heathens associate 'ostre with Iunn, keeper of the apples of youth in Scandinavian mythology".[41]

Erroneous association with Ishtar

In 1853, Scottish protestant minister Alexander Hislop published The Two Babylons, an anti-Catholic tract. In the tract, Hislop connects modern English Easter with the East Semitic theonym Ishtar by way of folk etymology. For example, from The Two Babylons, third edition:

What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people of Ninevah, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country. This name as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar.[43]

Because Hislop's claims have no linguistics foundation, his claims were rejected, but the Two Babylons would go on to have some influence in popular culture.[44]

In the 2000s, a popular Internet meme similarly claimed an incorrect linguistic connection between English Easter and Ishtar.[33]"