Two schools add the same letters. They get different numbers.
Name numerology turns letters into digits and adds them up. There are two tables in wide use, they disagree about most of the alphabet, and almost nothing published online says which one it is using. Type a name and both are worked out side by side, with every letter shown, so the disagreement is visible rather than hidden behind one confident answer.
What the two tables say
Letter by letter
The full working, both tables at once. Vowels are marked, because the inner number is built from those alone — and because which letters count as vowels is the third thing the two schools argue about.
Where the two tables came from
- The Pythagorean table is the one almost every modern book uses. It runs the alphabet against 1–9 three times over: A to I take 1 to 9, J to R take 1 to 9 again, S to Z take 1 to 8. It is simple, it covers the whole alphabet with no gaps, and its connection to Pythagoras is a name rather than a lineage — the arrangement is a twentieth-century one.
- The Chaldean table assigns 1–8 only, leaving 9 out on the grounds that it is not to be given to a letter. Its values are not alphabetical: A, I, J, Q and Y all take 1; F and P take 8. The groupings are usually explained as sound-based rather than order-based, which is why a letter’s position in the alphabet tells you nothing about its value.
- They reduce differently too. Both add digits until one is left, but the Pythagorean school stops at 11, 22 and 33 — the master numbers — and reports them unreduced. The Chaldean school cares about the compound number before reduction and treats the single digit as only the outer half of the reading.
- And they disagree about vowels. Y is the problem. Pythagorean practice usually counts Y as a vowel only when it is doing a vowel’s job; Chaldean practice generally does not. Since the inner number is built from vowels alone, one letter’s classification can move it by several points.
Everything on this page is computed in your browser as you type. The name is not sent anywhere, not stored, and not kept after you close the tab.
What this cannot do
- Two answers means at most one is right. The tables give different numbers for the same name. Any page that prints one number without saying which table it used is hiding a coin flip.
- Spelling decides the result. A middle name, an initial, a married name, a transliteration, an accent dropped at a border — each changes the total. A quantity that moves when a form is filled in differently is describing the form.
- It only works on one alphabet. Both tables assume the Latin alphabet of twenty-six letters. Applied to a transliterated name they read the romanisation, which was someone else’s choice, not the name.
- It is not a prediction and not advice. No number here says anything about your health, your money or your future. It is a tradition, shown with its working, and that is all it is offered as.
The useful thing is not the number. It is what happens when you type the same person in twice — with and without a middle name, or in two spellings — and watch the reading change. A tradition that moves when the paperwork moves is telling you where its answers actually come from.