B
Its name in English is spelled bee or occasionally be (pronounced /biː/), plural bees.
History
The letter B might have started as a pictogram of the floorplan of a house in Egyptian hieroglyphs or the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet. By 1050 BC, the Phoenician alphabet's letter had a linear form that served as the beth.
Typography
The modern lowercase letter b derives from later Roman times, when scribes began omitting the upper loop of the capital.
The letter B is often confused with the visually similar German ß which stands for ss.
Usage
In English and most other languages that use the Latin alphabet, the letter b denotes the voiced bilabial plosive (IPA: /b/), as in bib.
In English it is sometimes silent, as in debt or comb (however the 'b' in 'comb' was actually pronounced at one time). In Estonian, Icelandic, and in Chinese transcription, B is not voiced, but is still contrasted to P, which is geminated /pp/ in Estonian and aspirated /pʰ/ in Chinese and Icelandic.