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I love Thea AND that pronunciation. Theia is actually my favorite spelling but I'm unsure on it's true pronunciation

I prefer it said as thee-uh.

I love Thea!

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I'd spell it Thea, maybe Theia. Thaya and Theya look a little contrived, and the y takes away the pretty simpleness that Thea and Theia have. Thea by itself is soft, the y makes it more princessy, and the i makes it a little stronger/sharper.

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Maybe Theia over Thea, since Thea is more likely to be called THEE-a?

I think Thea's a nice name, but I don't like it pronounced thay-a. I say thee-a. I've also heard it said tay-a, which is OK. If I wanted it pronounced thay-a, I'd spell it Thaya or Theya. To me Thea and Theia are both thee-a.

It reminds me of a man I know named Thayer, so my first impulse is to go with Thaya. That might be mistaken for another rhymes-with-Maya name, though. I'd probably go with Theya in the end.

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It's not the worst name, but I much prefer Thea pronounced THEE-ah.

I've always heard Thea pronounced as THEE-ah, if I were to spell her pronunciation phonetically or more intuitively I would try Theya (like Freya, though that might get a vocal/non-aspirated(?) th like in they), or Thaya, or maybe even Theia as you mentioned.

Where does your sister's friend live? I think in the US, THEE-uh would be the intuitive pronunciation. BTW, I adore Thea. It's definitely in my top five (alas, my dh hates it).

I would definitely not spell it Thea, I knew a girl named Thea in high school and it was pronounced Thee-ah like I would have inherently pronounced it (though my sister's best friend in high school's name was Lea "Leh-ah" and it's really hard for me to see that as Lee-ah now). I think if I was going for Thay-ah I would spell it Theia probably but even that kind of seems counter intuitive. It's a nice name, I'm just not sure how well people would be pronouncing it without hearing it first.