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Kanji for Dove
The kanji most commonly used for "Dove" is 鳩.
鳩
Kanji that mean Dove
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鳩
dove
Also associated with to gather, to settle.
Onyomi: ku, kyuu Kunyomi: atsu.meru, hato 13 strokes Jinmeiyō
鳩 (hato) covers both the dove and the pigeon — Japanese does not divide the elegant bird from the park one; both are hato. The character puts 九 (nine, lending the sound) beside the bird radical 鳥.
The dove’s meanings in Japan run older than the Western olive branch. 鳩 is the messenger of Hachiman, the god of archery and war — the great shrine at Kamakura writes the character into its gate plaque with two doves forming the 八. After 1945 the Western sense joined it, and 鳩 now fronts for peace in memorials and school names; 鳩派 is “the dove faction”, politics’ peace wing, exactly as in English.
A charming extra: 鳩尾 (mizoochi), “the dove’s tail”, is the Japanese word for the solar plexus — the spot where the breastbone ends.
Before you use Dove kanji
鳩 is gentle and safe — dove, peace, divine messenger — but remember it is also, unavoidably, "pigeon": a Japanese reader may see the park bird before the symbol. If your point is peace itself, 平和 says it without ornithology; if it is the bird as emblem, 鳩 with an image of a white dove reads clearly.