"Shinji" ironically evokes the words for "truth" or "to believe" and can also mean "divine child." Shinji's name is even punned on in Rebuild 1.0; Misato exhorts Gendou to "believe in his own son", invoking of course the word shinji.
"Rei" can mean, among other things, "zero," "ghost" and "cold."
"Yui" puns on Rei, of course and, by Word Of God, on the word "yui" meaning "the only one."
"Gendou" is "limit" or "boundary."
"Ikari" uses the character for "anchor" (part of the nautical theme), but with a different character would be "wrath" or "anger."
"Nagisa" contains the characters for " messenger" and, with different kanji, can mean "shore."
The Japanese word given to the Angels, "shito," actually means "apostle" or "messenger" (which is the meaning of the original Greek word that became "angel" in English). It also sounds very close to the Japanese word for "person" or "human being," "hito", hinting at one of the deep secrets of the series.
The Angels' appearances and attacks are based on their names: for example, Sandalphon, the angel of embryos, starts off as an embryo in a volcano; Arael is the angel of birds; Israfel, who's beaten with music, is the angel of music; Kaworu aka Tabris is the angel of free will.
"Evangelion" comes from "eüangélion", the Anglicanized version of the Greek word meaning "gospel" or "good news", which has led the series' title to sometimes be interpreted as "New Century Gospel" or "New Beginning Gospel".
The WebMistress Shinny's the name, do you wanna know the rest?(:P)
04.05.91 when I started making history.
I'm just your ordinary girl and there's really nothing special about me. I just do whatever I
wanna do and I make sure that i'll never regret every decision that I make. Everything that
goes under the sun's fine with me , I could easily adapt.(^^) I'm not "maarte" but I love to
collect make-up and other girly stuffs. Obviously am a hardcore anime girl and a loyal
evangelion fan.
The REST, it's for me to know and for you to find out. :]