Bai is white (the character ri, which means sun is identical to bai
except for a dot on top if it), and Mao is hair. As far as individual
characters go, there aren't really many subtleties. When they are
among different characters, there can be much more information and
meaning. The more complex characters can have other characters added
together to mean something relating to those characters. For example,
the character for wood is Mu...two Mu will give you Lin which means
small forest...three Mu, sen, means big forest.

"Mao Tse-Tung" (Mao Zi Dong). Mao is the family name (same character
that also means hair). Zi is actually a little complex in that it
literally means a place with much water and plants; swamp. A portion
of the character 'jiang' can be seen in the character that means water,
and one of the other parts means plants (not totally sure about the
plants part...still learning!). Dong simply means east.

So we have: Hair, Swamp, East. Meaning...I don't know....perhaps only
his father knows.

It's confusing. heh.