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Since you often need to write your signature fast it should be something
short. I wonder which script, kana or kanji, natives use for writing their
signature (in most cases)?
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question
culture
What do Japanese signatures look like?
Japanese people use
[[印鑑]{いん・かん}](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_%28East_Asia%29#Japanese_usage)
(or [判子]{はん・こ}) stamps for official "signatures". Here are some common ones:

# 田中

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iQLfk.gif)

# 山田

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CGPCo.gif)

If they really need to write quickly, they may use [行書]{ぎょう・しょ} (semi-cursive)
or [草書]{そう・しょ} (full cursive), but **a)** that would be for everything they're
writing, not just their name, and **b)** anything official (signing legal
documents, etc.) is done with the 印鑑.
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answer
Talking about _writing_ signatures rather than using seals, the answer is that
they vary, and by no small degree.

Firstly, it's worth noting that not all Japanese have Kanji names. In more
recent times, some people (usually girls) are given names purely in kana, and
almost always hiragana, sometimes even where the kanji that usually write it
are obvious. This is to say that the name on their birth certificate will be
in hiragana.

The Japanese government requires that all names be either in kanji or kana,
but kana names aren't that common, and are limited almost entirely to women.

**Kanji**

The most common is generally kanji. This is the most common way Japanese
people write their name, and so it follows logically that signatures write
like this. Below are some examples:

![Male Baseballer](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1Cpz4.jpg) ![Another Male
Baseballer](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VL94h.jpg) ![Female
Seiyuu](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8DnlY.jpg)

**Kana**

I can't find any examples of katakana signatures in isolation. It's sometimes
used to annotate sounds, but wouldn't be used in legal documents, and as it
stands few if any names are written in katakana for native Japanese. Hiragana
is used, though more so amongst women, and even more in arts such for
actresses and seiyuu:

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Bb7T4.jpg) ![enter
image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/jM1WW.jpg)

Though the last one actually has the same artist with a kanji signature:

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Nenzh.jpg)

**Romaji using Hepburn**

A sign of increasing westernization, and of status, though again not as common
as kanji, or hiragana. The image below is an example of this.

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9QZnb.jpg)

**Summary**

Overall, kanji is definitely the most common, followed by hiragana. Katakana
is rare, other than sometimes annotating kanji readings, and finally the
small, but increasing number of people who write using romaji. All give off a
very different feel, and you may see more of some types in certain occupations
than others, especially in arts.
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answer
It would be helpful if **signature** were better defined in the question. This
is because the term signature can refer to at least the following things:

  1. as a synonym for "your trademark"
  2. how you would sign something for a fan
  3. how you would write your name / indicate who you are on a quasi-legal document
  4. how you would write your name / attest identity on an important legal contract

The answer by sqrtbottle talks almost exclusively about 1 and 2. In an
American context, 2-4 might all be roughly the same. In my own case, my
signature in English is illegible and doesn't even include every single
letter.

For 3-4, the point is that it should be a mark that would be hard to duplicate
due to the idiosyncratic nature of writing.

When I deal with "signatures" ([署名]{しょめい}) in Japanese however the situation
is quite different -- regardless of whether I'm writing it is in English
characters or one of the Japanese scripts.

The most common way of doing 3 or 4 is using an [印鑑]{いんかん}. Inkans come in
different degrees of legal validity scaling up from things you bought at a 100
yen shop for signing lighter documents to a [実印]{じついん} which is only used for
much more serious matters like signing a loan for a house or car.

A second related concept is [自署]{じしょ} where you can attest that something is
you by writing out your full name legibly by hand. For many documents, you
need to stamp it with your inkan if you printed it but can just skip this if
you hand wrote it ([押印]{おういん}[不要]{ふよう}).

I was just at the driver's license office and didn't bring my 印鑑, but being a
foreigner they just had me sign on the border of the revenue stamps. They were
not happy with my Western-style initials signature because they wanted at
least some legible part of my name on the stamps. By American (maybe more
broadly Western?) standards, this would be unnecessary as the thing that makes
it a signature is that it suffers from the defects of my writing style.

Consequently, it matters greatly if by "signature" you mean official or formal
way of attesting identity or if you mean something you can write for a fan.
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answer