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Japanese names can be written many different ways by combining the different ideographic and syllabic writing systems. It generally has little bearing on meaning, the idiosyncratic and enigmatic spellings (which often need to be explained to other Japanese speakers) being a traditional means of legal identity control. It also makes it extremely difficult to get an accurate idea of how popular are specific names, as one name can have literally a dozen different ways of being written in the record, and many readings will only be recognized correctly by close friends and family.