What Toyota means in Japanese.

The name of the new company was changed from Toyoda to Toyota - one you will probably hear if you go on one of the plant tours. The name "Toyota" for the company instead of the family name "Toyoda" for several reasons. First, Kiichiro Toyoda wanted to make a distinction between his family (private life) and his company (public life). In Japan, people count the number of strokes it takes to write kanji, hiragana or katakana. In katakana, it takes 10 strokes to write "Toyoda" and 8 strikes to write "Toyota". In Japanese, eight is a good number because the kanji used to write eight also has the meaning of "infinity". By using the name "Toyota", he was expressing his hope for "unlimited" possibilities for his new company.