The name for Japan in Japanese is written using the kanji  and pronounced ''Nippon'' or ''Nihon''. Before  was adopted in the early 8th century, the country was known in China as ''Wa'' () and in Japan by the endonym ''Yamato''. ''Nippon'', the original Sino-Japanese reading of the characters, is favored for official uses, including on banknotes and postage stamps. ''Nihon'' is typically used in everyday speech and reflects shifts in Japanese phonology during the Edo period. The characters  mean "sun origin", which is the source of the popular Western epithet "Land of the Rising Sun".