Just a question. Several years ago, Peking was changed to Beijing for English speakers and writers at least. Could one of the issues be the desire to try to make the spelling close to how a native of the area would pronounce it regardless of the conventions of decades or centuries. Perhaps, not wanting to appear to Anglo-centric and not sensitive enough to the concerns of the locals. (In either case I think it is a bit silly. I doubt many French people resent that the Germans call la France das Frankreich or Austrians who mind that the English call their country Austria when they know it as das Osterreich.) Is it this sort of idea behind the new spelling cropping up of that famous person's name?
Now an annectdote, possibly apochryphal. A Canadian wrote to the OED people to complain that the listed pronunciation for Newfoundland was incorrect. The correct pronunciation sounds like "new-fund-land" (sorry, I don't know, or understand, all those fancy symbols used to show pronunciation) while the dictionary listed it as the equivalent of "new-FOUND-land". The editors' response was that in all cases they tried to show the pronunciation as a native would say it, and that was how a native of Oxford pronounced it.
