These little icons have become a staple in our daily lives, but what's the the story behind those emoji meanings? First, it's helpful to know how emojis even came to be.

Emojis were first used in Japan and originally meant pictograph, with the first one showing up in 1998 or 1999.  They were invented by Shigetaka Kurita, and the word emoji literally means picture(e) and character (moji). Hence, emoji! While they were originally only available in Japan, the inclusion of them in unicode (a computing industry standard for text) allowed them to be used worldwide. As of 2013 there were 460 emojis, and it was just announced the new emojis will be released soon!

While emojis have gained huge popularity in the past decade, there is still some confusion as to those emoji meanings. That's probably because they originated in a completely different culture than ours (Japan), which is why it can be unclear what some of the symbols mean (hello strange McDonald's-like icon!).  While emojis can be hard to decipher, this handy guide of emoji meanings should prove helpful!

Click through the gallery above to find out our favorite emoji meanings, and let us know which ones you wish existed!