What's in a name

One of the things that confuses me about Taipei is why it's called Taipei. It's not just us, all the road signs and buildings have 'Taipei' on them.

So why is this a mystery? Well, take a look at the second symbol of the name (remember each symbol has a single sound, so Tai is one symbol and Pei is the other) 臺北. That second one should look familiar as it's the same one starts Beijing or 北京.

So one would think we'd be saying Taibei instead (BTW, Bei means north - Beijing being the north capital). Aparently it all stems from the different romanizations in use over time - Wade-Giles was popular originally which lead to names like Peking and Taipei. They're moving to Hanyu pinyin here now, but looks like Taipei will stay as is...