What your name adds up to

Letters mapped to numbers and summed. We use both the Pythagorean table most calculators use and the older Chaldean one, because they disagree and it is worth seeing where.

02 · The tables

The two letter tables

This is where the systems part company. Pythagorean walks the alphabet in nines. Chaldean is older and groups letters by sound rather than order. It has no 9 at all, because the number was treated as sacred and withheld. The same name routinely gets two different answers.

Pythagorean

A–I is 1–9, J–R starts again at 1, S–Z runs 1–8.

1	A J S
2	B K T
3	C L U
4	D M V
5	E N W
6	F O X
7	G P Y
8	H Q Z
9	I R

Chaldean

Grouped by sound, and stopping at 8.

1	A I J Q Y
2	B K R
3	C G L S
4	D M T
5	E H N X
6	U V W
7	O Z
8	F P

03 · Significations

What the three numbers mean

Expression

Every letter

Read as the outward shape of the name — what it presents to the world before anyone knows you.

Soul urge

Vowels only

Read as motive rather than behaviour. The vowels are the sounds you cannot say the name without.

Personality

Consonants only

Read as how the name lands on other people — first impression rather than intent.

Which name do you use?

The systems disagree. Some read the name on the birth certificate. Some read the name you actually answer to. Some insist on including the surname. There is no way to settle this from inside the method, so we compute whatever you type and leave the choice with you. Try both and notice that the number changes. That tells you something about the method itself.

We won't sell you a spelling

A large business exists around adding a letter to your name to change this number. We compute the number and stop there. Nothing here is stored — the name travels in the address bar of this page and nowhere else.

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