Easter Hare --> Easter Rabbit --> Easter Bunny

choi

www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2015/0 ... owd3c2dO/story.html

Note:
(a) "Before Americans started calling it a [Easter] 'bunny,' we called it a [Easter] 'rabbit' — and it began life as an 'Easter hare.'  The story of how this mythical leporid’s name shifted over time says a lot about how Easter evolved in America — going from a religious holiday with some traditional folkloric elements to a highly commercialized secular one"

leporid (adj and n; from Latin [noun masculine] lepus hare)
www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/leporid

Contrast
Latin noun masculine lupus wolf
(b) "In America’s first decades, under the Puritan influence of its early settlers, Easter was celebrated only quietly, as Washington University religion professor Leigh Eric Schmidt writes in his book, 'Consumer Rites; The buying and selling of American holidays. [Princeton University Press, 1995]' Around the middle of the 19th century, however, the Evangelical Protestant revival and increased immigration from Catholic countries brought a steeply increased public role for Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter."

(c) "People around the world had been painting eggs at Easter for centuries — if you give up eggs for Lent, what are you going to do with them but boil them and use them for decorations? — and 19th-century German immigrants imported their 'Easter Hare,' or 'Osterhase' "
(i) Lent
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lent
(section 1 Nomenclature; Ash Wednesday to Easter; traditionally forty days in Lent which are marked by fasting, both from foods and festivities, and by other acts of penance (prayers and almsgiving))
(ii) German English dictionary
* Ostern (noun neuter; Oster- in combination form): "Easter"  
  ^ Osten (noun masculine): "east"
* Hase (noun masculine): "(male and female) hare, sometimes mistakenly used for rabbit"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Hase

(d) "the name of the mammal associated (against all natural law) with laying and/or handing out eggs began to shift. 'Easter hare' seems to show up specifically in the context of the German tradition."

That is "laying eggs" and/or "handing out eggs."
(e) "A hare is a speedy, long-eared, and often quite large wild animal. Rabbits are slower and more compact, with smaller ears. They are more social than hares and make good companions for children."

hare
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare
(Hares are classified into the same family as rabbits and are of similar size; The five species of jackrabbit found in central and western North America are able to run at 64 km/h (40 mph), and can leap up to 3m (ten feet) at a time; "Young hares [living above ground among grass] are adapted to the lack of physical protection, relative to that afforded by a burrow [where rabbits live], by being born fully furred and with eyes open * * * are able to fend for themselves soon after birth")
(f) Bunny "is a pet name for rabbit (also [a pet name] for women and children: see Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue, a popular 1910s kids’ book series)."

(g) "there were mid-century dance crazes with 'rabbit' in the name, but none as popular as the 'Bunny Hop.' A 'bunny-boiler,' after Glenn Close’s famous cooking scene in 'Fatal Attraction,' might not sound quite so evil if she were dispatching a hare or a rabbit."
(i)
(A) The bunny hop (dance) "was created at Balboa High School in San Francisco in 1952."  en.wikipedia.org
(B) Chris Pikal, The Lawrence Welk Show: Dance To The Bunny Hop. YouTube.com, Jan 5, 2014.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWndL5N6edI
(ii)
(A) bunny boiler (n)
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bunny_boiler
(B) Richard Madnezz, Fatal attraction - Bunny Boiling Scen. YouTube.com, May 14, 2012.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XykEnBpyfr4