What's in a name

Alena is not a common name so I am always interested to hear about or find others with it. When we first started telling people the name we picked out one person knew an Alena (even spelled the same). There is also the little girl I gave swim lessons to who was my name inspiration. She was so darling, long blond hair with light blue eyes. She was adopted from Russia by my 7th grade English teacher. At Thanksgiving a little boy kept saying Queen Aleena every time I would say Alena's name. So after the fourth of fifth time I asked him why. He said I am not calling her Queen Aleena. Queen Aleena is Sonic the hedgehogs mom. I went online and did some research and this is what I found. She was a cartoon character in Sonic Underground. She is purple with blue eyes, she left her three children with different families. In the series the children look for her and are unable to find her. She leaves cryptic messages and clues for them to find, and several times intervenes directly to save them. They were unable to reconnect with her before the series was cancelled but if continued it is believed that they would one day reunite and form the Council of Four. Interesting...

I also found a model named Alena Seredova from the Czech Republic. There actually seems to be a lot of famous people (in Czech) with the name Alena. There are three spelling variations: Alina (ah-lee-na), Alena (ah-leh-na/ah-lay-na and ah-lee-na), and Aleena (ah-leen-ah). All variations are pretty much pronounced the same. Before choosing this name I had done some research and did not find any of this information.

Alena's nickname is Lee-lee. Another strange name, but I have been finding others as well. In Twilight Leah's nickname is Lee-lee. While watching a TV show some lady in prison was named Alicia had the same nickname. And there also is Leelee Sobieski.