Some of Taiwan's towns and villages, whatever their size, had their names altered during the colonial days-from 1895 to 1945. Like it or not, Taiwanese had to suffer the change, which the colonialist tended to do to better suit their Japanese taste. More often than not colonialists came and went, having left one town with a new name or sometimes even with two. 1920 topped all other years in its rather forceful cause of name changes. This peculiar job of name change, however, naturally gave rise to some confusion on the part of the dwellers between the original name of a place and the newly acquired name with more Japanese flavor. People were very often in the dark about how the new name came about, as is history itself today. This study looks into the origin of the town name and its change, with a special emphasis on the phonetic connotation of the time, which was characteristic of the two languages-more often than not, with one Chinese character pronounced in Taiwanese ways and in Japanese way.