YHVH is a claim, not a name. In the first peson, IHVH, God claims "I am being" or perhaps "I am breath". YHVH is taken from the first letters of that quote/clam, making a third person statement about God: "He is being", or "He has breath", perhaps "He exists" when rendered in english.  While the tetragrammaton stands in place of a name for god in the bible (and elsewhere), it is really the first letters of a statement about god.
   This should make sense, in light of the careful way god is treated - no "graven" images, no statues of god. El,  the other common judeochristian appellation of god, is similarly general in literal meaning, that being "god". Elohim is the plural, meaning "gods". The tribes of Israel followed a complementary female counterpart, with monotheism being a later, 7th century B.C.E. innovation. The female aspect of godhead, Shekinah, was the reason the "old testament" sometimes uses the term Elohim as a referrent to Godhead. Prior to the monotheist innovation, the Godhead included mr. and mrs. God, and hence Elohim - "Gods".
   While a case can be made for the removal of the Shekinah as a manifestation of anti-feminine patriachy, it seems to me just as likely to have grown from concerns over the primacy, over the precedence, of the masculine and feminine aspects. As in, the Shekinah may have been removed from the Godhead, over concerns over her eclipsing the masculine aspect part of a "no other gods before me" kind of argument. The reason could easily have been political, too - perhaps the Shekinah was embedded more strongly in Israel/Samaria, or associated with the northerm Aaronid priesthood in some way that made her Deicide desirable.