In a message dated 3/26/99 12:14:03 AM Eastern Standard Time,
MercutioV@aol.com writes:

<< It's an abbreviation for EVAngelion. It's easier to say Eva than
Evangelion,
 so a lot of the time they just shorten it. Kinda like X-Mas.  
 
 And as to why they're called Evangelion, no-one knows; it's not mentioned in
 any of the canon. Gendo probably just pulled a religious term out of his ass
 the day it came to name them.
 
 I woldn't worry about it too much; it's just a name the animators came up
 with, and doesn't have any real signifigance one way or the other. It's like
 asking 'Why is the Macross caled the Macross?' >>
	Well, I have this tendency to read the animation magazines, and this got
covered in the summer issue of AnimeFantastique.  (They've only done two
issues of far, but both have been pretty good -- though their coverage of
Evangelion is full of spoilers -- and it seems that they will be paying more
attention to anime then most of the other animation magazines.)
	However, my copy of the issue has gone AWOL and the only one I can find is
the spring '99 issue, so I can't quote directly.  You'll have to get your own
copy.  (Though I find that it's worth getting.  Low ad content, the articles
are well done, the printing is of decent quality, and it's readable.  However,
you better be interested in finding out more then you necessarily want to know
about the behind-the-scenes stuff.  But then, that means they are much more
interested in stuff like why Macross is called Macross.  It's probably
something that will cause much banging of heads on walls and desks and cries
of "I'm such a baka not to have figured it out before!")


		--Ryo Hoshi