Pronounced ILL-AHN / ЫЛАН.

Picking a name was not simple for us. At some point we came across ILAN and kept returning to it. Each time we talked about names ILAN kept moving up our lists.

ILAN is a hebrew name meaning “oak tree” or “great tree.”

One of the fun things about the name to us, is the hint of magic in it.

Our ancient ancestors saw “faces” in trees and eventually those faces thought and felt emotions. They were acting from two uniquely human brain functions, Theory of Mind and Hypersensitivity Agency Detection Device (HADD), which injected spirituality into the world. Theory of Mind causes you to map how you think onto other things. HADD wires your brain to suspect a strange sound you hear is caused by “a thing,” instead of the whistling wind or a creaking window.

Tree worship is one of the oldest forms of religion. Most every religion has found a spiritual connection through trees. Celtric druids, Indian mystics and Greek oracles talked to God through trees. The three major monotheist religions all have stories of God speaking to prophets at ancient trees.

The magical qualities of trees extends to post-religious socieites in which studies of happiness find that spending time in forrests are consistently found to make people happy and relieve the stressors of life.