Do Japanese names have meanings

The way this question was Worded makes it hard to tell what you mean, as that could mean a few things.

If you me foreign names then they would be written in a kind of alphabet or character set known as Katakana. Katakana is used for borrowings in the Japanese language as well. An example of this would be the name Erin would become エリン (E-Ri-N). Point to note: not all names in Japanese keep the same spelling when in romanji (romanji=using the roman alphabet to write Japanese Words) e.g. Catherine = キャサリン = Kya-Sa-Ri-N. In Japanese (unlike Chinese) you can keep a western name thanks to Katakana, even if its pronunciation changes slightly.

However if you mean native Japanese names its a little more complicated. In general a lot of People have Kanji in their names, however other people have Hiragana in their names (Hiragana is one form of Kana. Hiragana is also the more common form of Kana being used to write native Japanese Words). A good example of a Hiragana name would be みなみ or Minami, lit.South. As far as my knowledge goes I believe that 山田/Yamada is the most common family name Japan. Now 山田 is Kanji so a young child not know to pronounce Kanji and so may you see やまだ written on top of it to right of (It depends on the direction of the text) this is known as Furigana (Furigana = using Kana to learn how to pronounce Words). Furigana can be very useful with some names can have multiple ways that they pronounced e.g. Nakata and Nakada can both be 仲田.

In Japan (and some other Asian languages) the family name comes first, and the given name second. Now lets say you were Japanese in nationality and you lived in let's say the US and your name was Erin Tanaka. Then when you were in Japan your name would become 田中・エリン (strange name seeing as it is Kanji and Katakana).

I also apologize for my repeating of some Kanji