Konban wa, mina-san! (Good evening, everyone) People have asked why the Japanese subs were named I-#, RO-#. At the time, it was mentioned that this was the order of the Japanese alphabet, but it does not line up with modern listings of characters (kana). It turns out that it is based on an old poem called the Iroha (the first three characters are I, Ro, and Ha). This poem contains all the basic characters of the Japanese sylabaries, and was used in teaching both the Hiragana and the Katakana. It's still used today for various purposes. Look at the Usage section in the wikipedia article top see other common uses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroha
