Here's what the Etymological Dictionary says:
Easter
O.E. Eastre (Northumbrian Eostre), from P.Gmc. *Austron, a goddess of fertility and sunrise whose feast was celebrated at the spring equinox, from *austra-, from PIE *aus- "to shine" (especially of the dawn). Bede says Anglo-Saxon Christians adopted her name and many of the celebratory practices for their Mass of Christ's resurrection. Ultimately related to east. Almost all neighboring languages use a variant of L. Pasche to name this holiday. Easter Island so called because it was discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday, 1722.
But I would add that one of the biblical Names of Jesus is Oriens. He is the Sol Justitiae, the Sun of Justice who rises with healing in His wings, in the East. And that's also why churches traditionally are oriented toward the East.
It's pagan, perhaps, but that's only because pagan religions had some natural sense of the rhythms of human life, the natural calendar to which human life moves. Christmas is near the winter solstice, when the season turns back toward light and life; Easter is in the Spring, the time of rebirth.
That too is biblical, the post-flood rhythm of the cycles of human life, "seedtime and harvest."