Well, let's see.
In Catalan, the name can be written both
Helena or
Elena, although most people see
Helena as the most Catalan one. They sound the same in Catalan, but in Spanish
Elena is pronunced with the Spanish "e"...the [e] sound in the phonetic alphabet?
And I don't think
Ileana is the Spanish form of
Helena, at all. If you look at the link for
Ileana, it says it's the Romanian form of
Helen.
And well,
Helena is one of the forms for the Spanish
Elena, but if you're in an anglo-saxon country, I doubt you'll be using the pronunciation I said, or will you?
(And, btw, I agree with you: I'll never tell my family what I'm going to name my kids until they're born. I tried to comment on one of my favourite names with them once and both my mom and my sister could only say bad things about it! Aarrgghh! HA! As if I were to care! :-P)
EVAThis message was edited 9/25/2005, 6:22 AM