Wealth of Info on Variant/Related Characters

You can access a wide range of information on variant/related characters, including the list of similar-looking symbols and the correspondences between new character shapes and old character shapes, original characters and variant characters for names/places, Japanese kanji and Chinese/Korean kanji, Kanji and Tompa, Hiragana and Hentaigana.

Variant Characters of 龍, Corresponding Simplified Chinese and Tompa
Variant Characters of "龍", Corresponding Simplified Chinese and Tompa

Character あ, its Hentaigana and Related Characters
Character "あ", its Hentaigana and Related Characters

In JIS2004, the representative character shapes of some kanji characters were changed. Regarding these kanji characters, both the changed kanji and the previous kanji are displayed as variant characters. You can select the desired kanji between the changed shape and the previous one.

If you want to search the variant character or the old character shape for names, searching the variant character of well-used kanji is more efficient than searching the character by reading or parts. For example, the easier way of searching the kanji "愼" is inputting "慎" as the search criteria and selecting "愼", the variant character of "慎".

Character Info on 慎 and its Variant Characters
Character Info on "慎" and its Variant Characters

Just by clicking the variant character, you can check whether the kanji character is accepted for names by Japanese law. (This explanation is written for the people in Japan.)

Note: According to Article 60 of the Ordinance for Enforcement of Census Registration Act by Ministry of Justice, the following characters can be used for names.

  1. Kanji in Jouyou Kanji List (announced by the Japanese Cabinet as the 2nd cabinet notification of 2010, the kanji in parentheses in the list are not accepted.)
  2. Kanji in Appended Table 2
  3. Katakana or Hiragana (Not including Hentaigana)

Ordinance for Enforcement of Census Registration Act by Ministry of Justice
http://law.e-gov.go.jp/htmldata/S22/S22F00501000094.html (Japanese page)

You can Confirm that Variant Character 愼 is the Kanji for Names
You can Confirm that Variant Character "愼" is the Kanji for Names.

When you create a document or a website for kids, you can check whether the kanji you want to use is the must-learn kanji for elementary school students by The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan. If the kanji is the must-learn kanji for elementary school students, you can also check in which grade the students learn that kanji.

You can check in which grade the students learn the kanji 学
You can check in which grade the students learn the kanji "学".