Kanji, The Chinese characters used in Japanese writing started as pictographs in 3500 B.C. and evolved into Kanji about 2900 B.C. in China. They arrived in Japan 57 A.D.
The writing grew from pictures and became "ideographic", the things or action shown formed the character and was symbolised in it.
The 1750s Chinese dictionary shows an astonishing 48,641 letters in it. Today an average Japanese adult can understand and uses between 3000 and 6000 letters in their daily life.
Each letter has more than one meaning and pronunciation, with many letters sharing the same pronunciation but having different meaning.
sound: RA, RAKU, GAKU, TANOSHI
meaning: MUSIC, JOYFUL, EASY, GENTLE
Japanese believe that the letter has its own POWER AND SPIRIT therefore choose it carefully when using it for a person's name