I think, like you mentioned, changing a [name]Caitlin[/name] to [name]Kaitlin[/name] or [name]Caitlyn[/name] or even [name]Kaitlyn[/name] is fine. I feel like as long as you can tell what the name is when it’s printed out and it doesn’t deviate too much from the norm, it’s fine, because each one of those girls will have to spell their name anyways when they give it. Same with changing the way a name looks visually- I really can’t stand the way [name]Michaela[/name] looks in writing. [name]McKayla[/name] just looks better to me. [name]Caitlin[/name] looks better to me than the other variants, but I can point to thousands of girls whose parents clearly felt differently, and more power to them.
There’s also a case to be made for ease of pronunciation. Taking [name]Michaela[/name], for example- I would be inclined to pronounce that as [name]Michael[/name]-uh, if I didn’t know better. [name]McKayla[/name] actually makes the pronunciation much more clear.
Then there’s the tradition issue. [name]How[/name] has a name been spelled through the ages? [name]Marjorie[/name] is the more modernly accepted form of [name]Margery[/name]. Which one would be considered the misspelling today?
Then there are names from other languages. If we look at the names the original poster used as examples, [name]Aidan[/name] originally came from [name]Aodh[/name]án, and [name]Caitlin[/name] from Caitlín, which came from the French [name]Cateline[/name], which itself came from the English [name]Katherine[/name], which has about as many accepted spellings as [name]Caitlin[/name] does, probably because it came from a Greek name that’s written in a completely diffferent alphabet. So who is misspelling what, exactly?
So basically… I feel the same as the original poster. Name spellings have a certain degree of flexibility, and they always have and always will. That being said, don’t get crazy. The spelling of the name should at least reflect the accurate pronunciation, and when someone spells their name, it shouldn’t come as a big surprise. And if the deviation from what you believe to be the ‘original’ spelling is done for personal rather than practical reasons, then that’s so much the better. Nobody should ever have to justify their name to somebody else, but everyone eventually runs into that situation, and then [name]McKayla[/name], [name]Kylee[/name], and [name]Ellison[/name] will get to share a little bit of their family history.