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Yeah, it does - I don't think it's spoiling much to say his name was "Shinta" until at a young age after a very traumatic event, he was taken on as an apprentice by a slightly odd guy who said Shinta was too weak a name for a swordsman, and so renamed him "Kenshin".

His master's pretty cool. Also may be insane. Hiko Seijuro. You'll meet him during the "Legend of Kyoto" cycle, several times.

Do you know what "Shin" or "Shinta" means? I was going to look it up but I'm not sure how it'd be spelled in transliteration--Chinese and Japanese can be tricky to transliterate.

Kenshin's master must've been an incredible swordsman. What season/episode is he introduced in?

BTW I finished the Obiwaban (sp?) story over the weekend. I thought it was really neat how over the course of the story the Obiwaban became sympathetic, which reminded me of when you said the antagonists tend to be not purely evil in anime. Looks like the Obiwaban leader might come back for Kenshin in a later episode, though.