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I call it that too, but apparently it's Tbilisi now. I wonder when that change happened, my Russian lessons were in the 1980s. It was Tpilisi until 1936, and Tiflis to foreigners.
Well, according to Wikipedia the change happened in 1936:
Until 1936, the name of the city in English and most other languages was Tiflis, while the Georgian name was ტფილისი (Tpilisi).[8]
On 17 August 1936, by order of the Soviet leadership, the official Russian names of various cities were modified to more closely match the local language. In addition, the Georgian-language form T′pilisi was modernized on the basis of a proposal by Georgian linguists; the ancient Georgian component ტფილი (tpili, "warm") was replaced by the newer თბილი (t′bili).[8] This form was the basis for a new official Russian name (Тбилиси Tbilisi). Most other languages have subsequently adopted the new name form, but some language such as Turkish, Persian, Greek, and German have retained a variation of Tiflis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tbilisi
The reason appears to be the replacement of the older form of 'warm' with the newer one. From this article, it also seems that the name never was 'Tblisi'--that name doesn't even occur on the page. Perhaps it's a persistent spelling mistake, or the 'i' gets elided so people miss it, or it's a former Russian form?
Oliver Schick-
From this article, it also seems that the name never was 'Tblisi'
Yes, I read the article. It's the Tblisi-Tbilisi change I was talking about. We both use Tblisi, and I'm sure that's what we were taught when I learned Russian, and it also persists (495000 results on Google). We didn't all just invent that, yet Soviet era Russian maps say Tbilisi, so we didn't get it from them. Maybe it is just an error which refuses to die :)
gbj_tester
I call it that too, but apparently it's Tbilisi now. I wonder when that change happened, my Russian lessons were in the 1980s. It was Tpilisi until 1936, and Tiflis to foreigners.