Like most of you, when I joined the site, I thought that "Steem" was a different way of saying "Steam" - like the stuff that comes off a hot cup of coffee, or boiling pot of water. It turns out it is not. When I watched the video interview that 
If you haven't watched it yet, you can watch the whole interview here.
The definition of esteem (from Google) is "respect and admiration, typically for a person". What a great word to use as the foundation for the site/coin/community!