http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/skoga/pronounce.html
Take, for example, my name. The japanese character breakdown is:
The first character, pronounced shu (or, perhaps,
shoe), is the Japanese character for
outstanding.
The second character, pronouned ichi, is the Japanese character for the number one, which signifies that I was the first-born.
So, since my parents had expected great things out of me, and I was the first-born child, my name is Shuichi.