I've read lots of mangas and seen many animes, and it seems a Japanese person
can have virtually any kind of name ( _the meaning of a name can be something
completely ridiculous_ ). Is it true in real life, or is this only for the
purpose of amusement, and it doesn't actually occur in reality?
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names
Can Japanese names be anything?
A given name can be in theory virtually anything --- a decade ago or so, there
was a family who gave his son the name 悪魔 (devil) and that became a news. When
you register a newborn to the local government, apparently they cannot really
refuse a name just because it's stupid --- so despite various people
recommending against it, the child did get his name in the end.

On the other hand, in practice, parents give their children reasonable names.
What they consider reasonable names do change over the time, but an essential
component of it is a positive meaning, so it's very, very unlikely that you
find a real person whose name means something completely ridiculous.

Characters that appear in games, animations, and/or some novels sometimes get
names that you will not find in real life. This is a common technique to
create a world that's intentionally away from the reality --- if you are
reading a fantasy book, you do not want to see the kind of names you see in
your everyday life!

**EDIT:**

Dono was right and I was wrong. The parents and the city settled and the kid
did not get that name. The other thing I incorrectly understood was that
kanjis used in names must come from 常用漢字 plus alpha (known as 人名用漢字). So it's
far from "virtually anything."
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Although the number of Japanese names (and the possible combinations) is
practically limitless, there is an imposed limit on the way they can be
written. As far as kanji are concerned, only the [Jinmeiyō
kanji](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinmeiyo_kanji) and the [Jōyō
kanji](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C5%8Dy%C5%8D_kanji) can be used in names
in Japan. As of now, that's a total of roughly 3000 characters that can be
used. Hiragana and katakana can be used, as well, of course.
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Another point that I'd like to add here is that the readings of the kanji can
also be totally arbitrary. The only real requirement is that the kanji come
from the list. A recent example of this phenomenon is the name るな written as
月. For those who don't see the connection, るな comes from "luna," the Latin for
"moon," and of course 月 means "moon."
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