I greatly prefer
Maia because of its roots in
Roman and Greek mythology. It seems the most classic to me and that's the strongest selling point as far as I'm concerned. Also, I just prefer 'aia' to 'aya.'
Maya is fine if the surname has an Indian or Hebrew background but the spelling doesn't appeal to me nearly as much.
Maja is a diminutive of
Maria and I'm usually pretty anal when it comes to not using nns or pet names as full names because it leaves the individual without options.
It's funny how people view things differently. I would think
Maia or
Maya would be most often pronounced correctly while
Maja would be butchered on a regular basis. Then again, I live in the Southeast US. Also, I pronounce all three spellings MY-ah and have never heard MAY-ah for
Maia or
Maya.
ETA that while I realize
Maja can be a variant of
Maia, because it's also a diminutive of
Maria, that's primarily the way I see it.
This message was edited 6/5/2010, 12:50 PM