The Charts · Numerology
Your birthday gives one number. Your name gives three more.
What are name numbers in numerology?
Name numbers turn the letters of your name into digits, A as 1 through I as 9, then start again at J, and add them up. The total of every letter is the expression number, the vowels alone give the soul urge, and the consonants the personality number. They change with your name, not your birthday.
On your card: page 1 Your name, decoded
What they are
Modern numerology works from two raw materials, a birth date and a name. The birth date gives the life path. The name gives a second family of numbers, read as how a person comes across and what drives them underneath. 1
Letters take values in cycles of nine: A, J and S are 1; B, K and T are 2; and so on to I and R at 9. Every letter of the Latin alphabet gets a digit, and the digits are added and reduced just as a birth date is, keeping 11, 22 and 33 whole. 2
| Value | Letters |
|---|---|
| 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 |
The numbers, and how each is counted
- Expression. Every letter of the name, added and reduced. Numerology reads it as what a person is built to do.
- Soul urge. The vowels only. Read as what a person wants inside.
- Personality. The consonants only. Read as the first impression a person makes.
- Cornerstone and capstone. The first and last letters of the first name, read as how someone starts and finishes things.
- Missing numbers. Any digit from 1 to 9 that no letter in the name produces. Numerologists call these karmic lessons.
A worked example
Using a word, not a person: MIDWAY.
Letters: M=4, I=9, D=4, W=5, A=1, Y=7. All of them add up to 30, which reduces to 3: that is the expression number. The vowels (I, A) give 10, which reduces to 1, the soul urge. The consonants (M, D, W, Y) give 20, which reduces to 2, the personality number.
Which name counts?
Numerologists disagree. Many use the full name on the birth certificate; others use the name a person goes by. The machine counts the name you give it, the one you want printed on your card, so a nickname and a birth name can come out differently.
Accents are dropped before counting (É counts as E). Names written only in other scripts have no Latin letters to count, so for those the card leaves this section out rather than invent numbers.
Where name numbers come from
Era by era, with sources. More in the Reading Room.
- Ancient Greecec. 570–490 BCEPythagoras, later credited as the father of numerology, writes nothing at all. Everything known of his views comes from other people, mostly much later. 3
- Hebrew traditionantiquityHebrew letters double as numerals, and gematria reads a word through the total of its letters. The word gematria itself first appears in a list of interpretive rules attributed to Rabbi Eliezer ben Jose the Galilean. 4
- Rome1st century CEGreek letters had number values too. A verse quoted by Suetonius mocked Nero because his name in Greek letters added up to the same total as a phrase accusing him of killing his mother. 5
- Modern1908Mrs. L. Dow Balliett of Atlantic City publishes The Philosophy of Numbers. It gives the letters values in cycles of nine and teaches that a name vibration and a birth vibration together show what a life is suited for. 2
- Testing2017A psychologist tests birth numbers against Nobel Prize winners and finds nothing beyond chance. No controlled test of name numbers turned up in our search. 1
Asked at the booth
Does Y count as a vowel?
Numerologists disagree; some count Y as a vowel when it sounds like one. The machine keeps one rule for everyone: only A, E, I, O and U are vowels, so Y always counts with the consonants.
Does a married name change my numbers?
Yes, if you use it. The name numbers come from the letters, so a new surname gives new totals. Your life path, which comes from the birth date, stays the same.
Should I include my middle name?
Use the name you want counted. The machine counts exactly the name you type for the card, middle name or not, and shows the letters it used.
How are name numbers different from the life path?
The life path comes from the birth date and can never change. Name numbers come from the letters of a name, so they change if the name does. Numerology reads the two side by side.
Go deeper
That's how it works for everyone. Your card works it out for you.
This page explains the method and where it comes from. What it says about you is sealed on your card, worked out from the day, the minute and the place you were born.
What your card covers
See all six pages, sealedFold the pages back
1 Who you are
2 The machine says
3 Your sky
4 Love & your people
5 Work & money
6 Your year ahead
Sources
- A Test of Numerology: Do Birth Numbers Predict Nobel Prize Winners?, Journal of Articles in Support of the Null Hypothesis, vol. 13 no. 2 (Jeremy Genovese, Cleveland State University). Read on .
- The philosophy of numbers; their tone and colors (Mrs. L. Dow Balliett, 1908), Internet Archive (Cornell University Library scan). Read on .
- Pythagoras, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Read on .
- Gemaṭria, Jewish Encyclopedia (Solomon Schechter and Caspar Levias). Read on .
- Suetonius, Life of Nero, chapter 39 and note 125, LacusCurtius, University of Chicago (Suetonius, trans. J. C. Rolfe, Loeb edition). Read on .