This is a place name in the Book of Genesis (allowing for transliteration discrepancies).
It’s also the name of an acquaintance of mine, who told me that she’s been told that it’s Hebrew for either a) Little Eve ([C]havva, meaning “Eve,” and presumably the rest being a diminutive suffix) or b) something about a mortar and pestle, and the stirring motion.
Not having any background in Hebrew, I did some snooping around and found some sources that indicated that it might mean “circle” (well, there’s a sort of a stirring motion, but nothing to indicate mortar and pestle).
This gal is not Jewish. Her parents just picked the name because they liked the sound of it.
And possibly, this might not even be a native Hebrew word, just a place name that found its way into the Hebrew language. Anyway, can any of the Hebrew experts give some explanation of whether or not this is actually a Hebrew word, and what the root indicates, if so?
Chava is indeed the Hebrew name from which the English form Eve is derived. A common Yiddish (vernacular of Eastern European Jews) diminutive of Chava would be pronounced something like Chavele with a neutral “schwa” sound on the last two syllables. Not something most would write as Havilah ordinarily but your friend’s parents may have had it in mind anyway.
The problem is that if this gal is not Jewish, I assume she an her parents never spelled the name in Hebrew. There are two hebrew letters that give the sound “V”…“vet” and “vav”. (There are also two Hebrew letters that give what is transliterated into English as an “H” sound - heh, which is an actual “H”, and “het”, which is more of a throat-clearing sort of sound…think of the “ch” in “Art Buchwald”. I’ll assume that one’s a “het”, though.)
If it’s a “vet”, that gives the meaning of “package” which Martha found. The root of this is “hevel” which means a rope; a “havilah” is then a bundle tied with rope, which has come to refer to all kinds of packages.
It it’s a “vav”, then that conforms to the spelling of “Havah”, or “Eve.” (which has its root in the Hebrew “Haya”, meaning “life”) However, the diminutive of that is generally “Havi” or Havalah", not the combination of those two that would form “Havilah” (although of course it’s possible that your friend’s mother named her on a mispronounciation).
And, as you noted, “Havilah” is also the name of a place in Genesis 2:11. Most Jewish commentators believe that refers to some place on the Indian sub-continent. If it is a Hebrew-based word at all, the root probably comes from “life” as well, but more likely, the name is not originally Hebrew, but merely Hebraicized in the Bible.