My mother’s mother’s name was Eva. It was pronounced with a short e rather than the long e that is probably more common with that name. However, Eva’s first daughter was named Verneva, a combination of her two parent’s names: Vernon and Eva. Verneva’s name was pronounced with a long e. Verneva went by the nickname Teddy for much of her life and we always referred to her as Aunt Teddy. I never met Eva. She died before I was born, but her presence was very real in our household with plenty of stories of her life and faith. She was the mother of five daughters, one of whom preceded her in death. She was very active in her Methodist Church and in Epworth League, where she held many statewide offices. She had a lot of courage, including proving up her own land claim living alone the required time in her own claim shack without electricity or running water though a cold Montana winter with the nearest neighbors more than a mile away.

I have not gone through all of the family genealogies. I have access to the genealogy research that was conducted by my mother and Aunt Teddy, but it remains part of the unsorted papers that I’ve vowed to get through in the new year. However, I don’t know of any other relatives with the name Eva. It seems to have been original in our family with our grandmother. As far as I know none of my cousins, their children and grandchildren have been given that name. Another thing I do not know is whether Eva is an alternate spelling of the biblical name commonly spelled Eve or if it is a shortened version of Evelyn. Evelyn, of course, is related etymologically to Eve. In either case, the a at the end of the name is a bit unique.

When we adopted our daughter, we expected to be asked to adopt an older child. If that had been the case we would have received a child who already had been named and it would not have fallen to us to choose a name. However, our daughter came home with us when she was just under a month old and although she had been called by another name by her foster parents, we were advised to name her. We had only one day to choose the name for the agency paperwork to be completed. We decided to go with the name we had selected had her older brother been a girl. Her middle name is Eve. We chose the more conventional spelling and pronunciation. Having given both of our children Hebrew names in part because of my love of the study of the Hebrew scriptures, we decided that conventional spellings were best. As it is both of our children have first names that are Hebrew and that are routinely misspelled by baristas and others because translating vowels from Hebrew to English poses a certain challenge.There are many alternate spellings of both names.

After we had adopted our daughter my mother once expressed a mild disappointment that we had not chosen to spell her middle name Eva, but that didn’t stop her from loving the child unconditionally and certainly the stories of grandmother Eva were a part of her upbringing.

The name Eve has become a bit of a family name now as it is also the middle name of our oldest granddaughter. Her first name also starts with an E, so the marks on the door frame of our house where we record the heights of our grandchildren has several lines with “EE” and the date she was that particular height. Our grandchildren like to be regularly measured, with an eye toward the other line on the doorframe that is measured as the minimum height to ride in a car without a child’s booster seat in Washington. EE is just a bit shy of that mark, but she likes to keep checking.

Eve, or Eva, as it appears in the Latin Bible, is the name of the first woman in the Bible. In the Genesis story, she is formed by God by separating a side of the first man, Adam, to form a partner for him. Her name is the same Hebrew name as the breath that God blew into Adam when he was created. It means life or living. The name has also been translated full of life and mother of life. For us, when we were choosing names for children before the birth of our oldest child, it seemed like a celebration of new life in our midst and a wonderful name for a child. It certainly fits well with our daughter and granddaughter. I have no regrets with the choice of the name or with the choice of spelling.

Although the use of the word Eve when applied to a day like today, which is Christmas Eve, comes from the word evening, and not from the Biblical name, I’ve always drawn a connection. Christmas Eve is an expression of the expectation of new life born each year in our world. It is a night of candlelight celebration of the gift of light. It is a night when we always read the prologue to the Gospel of John which begins, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of humanity. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” I memorized the entire prologue years ago and recited it from memory at many Christmas Eve services while holding a candle. The association of life and light with the names of my grandmother and our daughter is firmly cemented in my brain.

Tonight is that night. My role in the church has shifted. I’m a voice in the choir for the candlelight service, not appointed to speak any of the traditional words. But I will be thinking of life and light and of Eve and Eva on this night. It will not disappoint. The gift of life is a cause for genuine celebration no matter how dark the times may seem.