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Kanji for Sun
The kanji most commonly used for "Sun" are 日、陽、旭.
日
Kanji that mean Sun
日 (hi / nichi) is the sun — a circle with its centre dot, squared by the brush into four strokes. No character works harder: it is the sun itself (日の出, sunrise), the day (毎日, every day; 日曜日, Sunday — “sun day”), and the nation — 日本, Japan, “origin of the sun”, whence “Land of the Rising Sun”. The red disc on the flag, the 日の丸, is this character drawn as geometry.
陽 (yō / hi) is sunlight as warmth and principle: 太陽 (taiyō) is the formal word for the sun; 陽気 is cheerfulness (“sun spirit”); and in the old cosmology 陽 is the yang of yin-yang — the bright, active half of everything. As a name element (Yō, Haru, Hinata — 陽向, “toward the sun”) it has been a favourite of recent decades.
旭 is the sun specifically rising — covered on this site’s own page — and 曜 puts the sun into every weekday’s name. Sun-worship is old here: Amaterasu, the imperial ancestress, is the sun made goddess.
Words using Sun kanji
Everyday Japanese vocabulary built from the characters above.
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同日
どうじつ
the same day
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太陽
たいよう
Sun
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日米
にちべい
Japan and the United States; Japanese-American
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陽子
ようし
proton
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毎日
まいにち
every day; daily
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山陽
さんよう
south side of a mountain; Sanyo district
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日本人
にほんじん
Japanese person
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太陽電池
たいようでんち
solar cell
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今日
きょう
today; this day; these days
Before you use Sun kanji
日 alone is so common it reads as "day" or as a fragment of 日本 before it reads as the sun — powerful but ambiguous. 陽 is the better tattoo: warmth, light, yang energy, and beloved as a name. 太陽 in full is unmistakably "the sun". All are auspicious; none carries a negative sense.