Thank you for your answer. Part of the appeal of these names for us was that they are relatively plain. We're kinda traditional and don't really care for the odd spellings and pronunciations of names that seem to be the fashion nowdays. That said, do you think Jana will be a source of confusion to people. We already get "Now is it JAN-uh, JANE-uh, YAHN-uh?" I thought of adding another 'n' so the pronunciation would clearly be JAN-uh, but I think it lowers the class somehow. That's why we also went with the traditional spelling of Caitlin rather than one of the more popular variants. As for nicknames, as you said, Jana is short so there isn't much to work with there. Is Caitie an option?
Sorry to butt in here.. But I wanted to throw in my own thoughts, if you don't mind!
I graduated from high school in 2008, and every other name called at graduation seemed to be a variation of Caitlin.... So many girls in my high school had the nickname "Caitie" that we often joked that if you forgot a girl's name, yelling out "Cait!" or "Caitie!" would probably yield an appropriate response. Most of the girls that I grew up with who had this name disliked the extreme commonality of it.
I ended up marrying a boy I went to high school with in the summer of 2009, and we just had our first child this past January. When naming our daughter, we decided to give her a name that strayed from the "traditional path" in the hopes that she would not grow to dislike her name simply because she felt that she was just one girl in a long line of girls who shared a name. We chose Harlow for a first name, but gave her a more common and "professional" name as a middle name: Renée. We figured that this would give her an option later on in life if she wanted to use something more common in her professional life. With all of this being said, I would have to agree with our New Baby Name Genie in saying that two common names might just be a little too plain! But, nonetheless, I do think that Jana and Caitlin are both beautiful names... and both very feminin! If you do decide on this name, it will be a beautiful choice regardless if it sounds common to some people or not!
As for your worry about confusion on pronunciation of Jana... Well, my name is spelled RachAEL vs. the traditional RachEL spelling, and growing up, I was RARELY called by the correct name. People always ended up calling me "Rochelle" because they were very confused by the spelling of my name. It was bothersome when I was young and in school, but I've gotten used to it now and I think the spelling of my name as Rachael looks nicer than the Rachel spelling. So while the pronunciation might be a problem for her in her early years at school, it probably won't matter to her down the road!
Hope this was of some use to you!
