[Nyororin]

I think that you also have to keep in mind that Kanji aren`t only used in Japan - they`re originally from China and the written Chinese language consists entirely of them.
The meanings of the characters themselves have had a lot of time to change between the countries. Something that may be written with one in China may be written with 2 in Japan, and the other way around. In some cases, the meanings have diverged so much over time that they no longer mean anything similar.
And, as with most every language, there is more than one way to say the same thing.